Flesh Wound
by Ripper101
Summary: Those fateful words were never meant to do more than rescue a baby from the monster's clutches. But shattering the world has its consequences and Sarah needs to face a challenge that has nothing to do with a labyrinth and everything to do with her mind.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not presume to say that I own any of the characters herein or the movie they derive from. 'The Labyrinth' is a true work and mine is only a humble fiction that feeds from it.

Warning: Vampire themes.

Author's Note: This started as a one-shot and degenerated into something longer. It's written in answer to a challenge in a forum.

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When the threat came, Sarah was ready for it.

She was alone in the park, waiting. She'd felt this pull for weeks on end. Sleepless nights and interminable days- they all flowed into one big, breathless moment of anticipation.

Not like there were dreams, oh no. No dreams as far as she could tell. She slept very soundly most nights. Apart from Wednesday but then she'd had a lot on her mind wondering about all of this.

Oh, she'd been waiting.

And it couldn't be too long. Sarah grudgingly admitted that she had an overdeveloped sense of the dramatic, but she _knew_ this- he wasn't finished yet.

She'd steadied herself, naturally; it had taken all her strength of mind not to melt into a quivering heap of 'why' and 'what did I ever do'. Sarah wasn't going to melt into a quivering heap for anyone, let alone That Person. She wouldn't allow it. She had her pride! And she'd never be able to look herself in the mirror again if he showed up and she gulped at him like some petrified goldfish.

She'd been very careful with her words. She hadn't wished anyone or anything anywhere if she could help it. Well, maybe Mrs. Maynard, but seriously, the old bat was forever complaining to Karen about Merlin. As if Merlin would ever deign to dig in her garden- with all those weeds and grubs he'd probably catch something awful if he tried.

She was even nice to Karen! It was a feat and one she felt quite proud of. Karen with all her sugar-coated, painstaking politeness and her unimaginative, monotonous droning. Honestly! The way she talked, Sarah was almost expecting herself to waste away of consumption because she didn't get asked out on dates.

"Poor me," she sighed sarcastically, "No one wants me. I'm nobody's child. Ha!"

When she looked up, the owl was there. Hunched in the weak sunlight and ruffled by wind, but undeniably there. Staring right at her.

For a moment she got the crazy notion that he would appear right there in the park. But he wouldn't, surely. It was too public. Anyone would see and that was usually where the worry ended. Because if 'anyone' saw… Sarah wasn't sure what would happen.

She forced herself to look down, to keep playing with Merlin's shaggy hair. Scratch behind his ear… ruffle the top of his head… pet down his back… scratch behind his ear… ruffle the top of his head… pet down his back… scratch… ruffle… pet… ruffle… pet… pet… ruffle… scratch…

Sarah looked up and the owl was gone.

It was vaguely disturbing. She hadn't heard it come or go. But then she'd been busy concentrating on her little dilemma.

Or big dilemma, depending on what mood he appeared in.

She'd run his labyrinth, though, and she'd won. He'd told her it was dangerous- he'd tricked her, charmed her, threatened her- but she'd won. She just had to keep reminding herself of that fact.

He had no power over her.

When six o' clock came she rose slowly to her feet, clapping her hands and calling to her dog. Merlin bounded up with a bark, ready to lope patiently at her heels as she made the usual dash home at the usual time of much-too-late. It was tradition. Sarah liked traditions. She kept them as strictly as possible.

She ate popcorn every time she went to the cinema. Thanksgiving meant turkey dinners. And Lancelot was the last person she said good night to when she went to sleep.

Lancelot _had been_ the last.

Sarah still wasn't sure about Toby. He cried too much. When he wasn't crying he was feeding or sleeping. Mostly he cried. Logically she knew he was still a baby and he was doing what was natural to babies. It was logical. But she wanted a playmate! Someone to have adventures with!

Like her Mom had done with her.

"The pirates are after us, Merlin," she muttered, jogging faster across the street, "See that light there? We have to make it there! An old, wise man lives there and he'll help us."

She paused at the gate of the Mackenzies' garden, staring at the statue with wide green eyes. "Please, Sir," she began, "We need your help. It's urgent!"

Merlin sat down and waited.

Eventually she turned back to him. "He says that we're almost at the safety zone. Come on, Merlin! There's no time to sleep! Adventurers never sleep and we have the secret treasure."

She wasn't looking where she was going. Only running, dark hair whipping into her face as she ducked behind someone's house and looked back to call Merlin.

Hard hands caught her up and she yelped as she toppled.

Fortunately, someone's body was in the way.

Unfortunately, _someone's_ body was in the way.

Sarah felt the grip tighten on her arms as she stared up in fright at that face she knew from a childhood past. "Oh, no."

"Oh, yes. Why the hurry, Sarah?" He grinned down at her, lowering his hands finally and taking a courteous step back. "Was it the unicorns chasing the mane-thief? Or the pirates again?"

She gasped, the breath knocked out of her. "How do you know?"

"I've watched you. I thought we both knew that." He folded his arms and the smile seemed to melt away. And then he just looked at her, feral and tense and so awfully controlled! How did he manage to keep himself so controlled?

It could only be one thing- "It's not over, is it?" Sarah asked, still panting slightly.

He shook his head and had the pleasure of seeing her look momentarily desperate. "Fear nothing. I won't send you back to the Labyrinth."

Sarah was relieved. She could feel it slacken her muscles and unknot the lump in her throat. "I'm not scared of the Labyrinth," she said bravely.

"Oh?" He looked almost amused at the show. "And why is that?"

"I beat you the last time."

His lip curled. "You beat the Labyrinth, little girl. You haven't beaten me. And I am far more dangerous."

Sarah had nothing to say to that. She knew what she wanted to say. She wanted to tell him to leave her alone and she wanted to tell him that she didn't want to see him again. She wanted to tell him that he'd done quite enough, thank you very much, and she was done with him and his Labyrinth and his painfully revealing games.

"I'm going home," she said bluntly, "Don't you come near me again."

She almost made it past him. She prayed all the while that she walked towards him, all the while as she drew level with him. She was almost past him! And he grabbed her wrist and spun her around.

"You are coming with me," he told her.

"What? Why!"

"Because it is the way of things."

"No, it's not! This isn't how the story goes! You have no power over me and I demand that you let me go."

"Hardly." He held on even tighter as he conjured up a crystal and dropped it at their feet, his grip still trapping her.

A bare flash of light and she just _knew_ that tingle on her lips. The smell of the air in her nostrils. "Let me go," she seethed.

One hard yank and he considerately let her go.

She sank back into the wall, cradling her hurt wrist. She stared at it for a while, imagining the bruises that would form. While she was at it, she imagined the sheer panic her Dad would get into if Merlin turned up at home without her. They'd be wild, worrying about her and fearing for her safety.

They'd never even find her trail because she was with a fairytale gone wrong, with the villainous Prince Charming, in a land where the magic was constructed to hurt.

She intended to look up with just the right mixture of stern determination and proud sufferance. That was how they did it in the movies. It was the only way to look, anyhow, to show him that she wasn't going to be pushed around again.

He could abuse her, beat her, torture her but she…

Sarah stopped there.

Sarah stopped there and looked around at pure disaster- walls that caved and collapsed; withered plants and blackened stone; at a haze of smoke in the strange sky.

"Get up. It's not safe to stay here anymore."

Sarah did as she was commanded. She was too surprised to do otherwise. She even followed him as closely as she could when he strode to the doors that hung creaking on their hinges.

Jareth clicked his tongue but went in without comment, steering right. He walked, waited, watched and then swung right again and took a left.

Sarah blinked her eyes. "But the worm," she blurted.

"What worm?"

"The worm."

"You are not making sense."

"I tried to go left. The worm said never go left," Sarah explained, pointing down the twining passages, "Never go that way. That's a direct quote. He even repeated it."

"Whether he repeated it or not, it is the best way to go. If you keep going this way, you go straight to the Castle. Perhaps make sure of your directions next time."

He stalked away without another word. Very clearly in no mood for polite conversation.

Sarah hesitated less than a second but followed anyway. There was nowhere else to go but forward. She'd learned that at least in the Labyrinth.


	2. Chapter 2

The walk was shorter than Sarah would have thought possible. Jareth swept ahead of her and didn't look back. He left her to struggle on.

There didn't seem to be much danger, in any case. The whole labyrinth was a shamble of crumbling rock and blistered plants. Occasionally Sarah found herself skirting deep holes in the pavement.

There was no evidence of life anywhere. Until they reached the City. Sarah found _that_ was much the same as she remembered it- crooked, grubby, picturesque and crowded. The goblins stopped and stared as the Goblin King came through the gates with the Girl behind him.

Sarah stopped and stared too. The Castle looked as bad as the Labyrinth.

"'ey! What she doin 'ere?" a goblin finally called out.

"Yeah! We don't want her here, no we don't."

"Send her away!"

"Throw her out!"

"Kill her!"

The entire throng of goblins stopped shouting and jumping and looked around to the little goblin that crouched instantly behind a faded blue door. "What?" the goblin quivered, "Yer were all thinkin' on it. I knows yer."

Sarah retreated a step, more than a little scared by this verbal attack. She couldn't even think why! It wasn't as if she had ruined the goblins' lives. Their City looked fine so the damage couldn't have been so bad.

"Guards," Jareth said simply, looking somewhere else and lifting a hand.

Sarah looked around for the comical little goblin guards that she had seen before. She might be able to run for it. They would fall over their own feet if they could manage it. She just had to be smart and keep her head.

The brief sound of steel and then Sarah found herself looking across to the barrel of a handgun. Above it were a pair of unfriendly grey eyes.

"My guards, Sarah," Jareth introduced, "My personal guards."

She was tongue-tied.

The human figure dropped the gun into some kind of pouch at his side as others gathered into what seemed a nonchalant group around. And then they moved as one to reach her side.

The brave or stupid amongst the goblins moved aside and gave the company a large berth. The more fearful, and some of the wise, ran. They took to their heels and fled in what looked to be sheer terror.

Sarah wouldn't have minded running herself.

"What is this?" she choked.

"Don't be foolish, Sarah. This is for your protection." He nodded to the leader and watched with a great deal of calmness as his guest was quickly taken in hand and pulled towards the battered Castle. He looked at his goblins and just shook his head.

Sarah tried to reason with them, struggling in vain to find some way out of that grip. Between the prayers in her head to a God she'd never really believed in, she railed at herself for not having the sense to get away from Jareth as soon as she could. She'd followed him like a lamb right into a trap!

He'd all but warned her that he wasn't done with her and she'd quietly agreed to come back Underground. Why? What instinct could she possibly have misinterpreted to do such a thing?

"Let me go," she demanded, quaking in her skin, "Let me go!"

She repeated it. Again and again. Kept saying it because really, what else was she to do when the hands dragging her away were like vice-grips.

The guards were getting edgy with all her talking. She could see that. They kept looking at her and then turning steadfastly away again. She began to assert herself a little more because they had to crack. Just once! They had to give in! She wasn't dangerous and she wanted to go home. She hadn't meant any harm and they didn't have any power over her. They didn't! They had no power at all.

She said so- "You can't do this. I won the game the last time. Jareth has no power over me so neither do you! You can't do this!"

The leader suddenly spun around and lunged for her, teeth bared in a snarl. "Shut up, girl," he ordered rudely, shaking her.

Sarah screamed and Jareth was there instantly. "What is going on?" he demanded, "I said she wasn't to be threatened."

The reassuring information came a little too late. Sarah screamed and screamed and screamed. She wouldn't stop. Even when Jareth swooped down on her and shook her himself.

"Stop it," he demanded, "Guards, keep alert!"

It was all a little too late. The creature had been sleeping, resting- as it did in the day- but the noise was too loud. The company was betrayed. And Jareth could only snatch Sarah up and disappear out, safeguarding what was important to him. The guards turned to fight with spears and knives, guns and claws.

The beast was impervious to all those and they knew it. But they fought because they were vampires and they would not run.

"His teeth," Sarah babbled, wrenching herself away, "His teeth! He- he…"

Jareth very calmly smacked her.

She stopped howling but the shock hadn't broken. She just stood there, shivering, wringing her hands one against the other.

They had said, hadn't they- 'kill her'. Even the goblins and the goblins were stupid. The whole place was dangerous and the guards had fangs and red flames deep in the pupils of their eyes.

They had fangs and flaming eyes. Kill the girl, the goblin had shouted, kill the girl.

Sarah whimpered and tried to force her heartbeat to slow down. She had to stay calm. She had to think clearly.

Jareth left her to her mental exertions, standing at the window and watching passively as his guards were slaughtered. Lyndon would live because Lyndon always lived. In a manner of speaking, of course. He conjured up a crystal and spoke into it, "Come back. Let the wretches die."

Those who could- obeyed. They tore themselves away from their companions and they dived nimbly back to the Castle.

The beast didn't follow. It was too busy with the few it had in its clutch.

Even as Jareth watched, one of the guards still alive raised his clawed hand and ripped his own throat open.

"The better to die," Jareth sighed. It was a contingency plan for such situations. He looked over his shoulder to the centre of the room and Sarah was through the worst of it.

Indeed, she was sitting ramrod straight in a chair with very lucid green eyes trained on his back. When he caught her eye, she blinked and went ever so slightly pink.

He turned around and settled himself for leaning against the nearest stretch of wall. "Are you done?" he asked bluntly.

She didn't say anything at first. And when she did, the fear was still seething just behind the careful neutrality of her tone. "Why'd you bring me here?"

"We have unfinished business," he snapped, pulling off the wall and striding towards her. "If you have rested quite enough, I suggest you follow me."

The way he said it made her pause. "You suggest it?"

"You may do as you like in this Castle. Stay if you wish. However, the ceilings tend to fall in these days," Jareth smirked, "A technical problem I am endeavoring to fix."

Sarah got up hurriedly and cast a worried glare at the ceiling. "Now where?" she asked, "I'm not going unless I know what I can expect first."

"What you can expect is that I do not want you dead. Be grateful. I did until a short while ago."

"What?"

"I changed my mind. Come. The caves below are where I need to be."

Once again, the Goblin King followed his usual policy of stalking away, leaving her to decide to follow or not, just as she liked.

Sarah found that she might as well follow the devil in hell, if only because she knew _that_ danger versus the unknown ones that lurked in dark corners. So she kept sight of the back of that black jacket. The view was… rather entertaining, she found, even if it did make her feel frustrated with herself.

The jacket was short- undeniably short- and the trousers were tight- also undeniable- and the whole effect was to show off the lean, slick muscle that moved beneath cloth and skin with that unconscious pull and release that made the human body such a wonderful mechanism. Sarah wasn't an expert on male bodies but she found this one to be remarkably fascinating.

Jareth slowed his steps and let her get closer. The corridor was narrow and humid but the draught was blowing her scent to him and he couldn't resist smiling at the vague hint of 'fascination' he could detect.

The little thing wasn't quite so young, he noted, laughing inwardly to himself. He took her down and down, right to the grounds of the Castle, and then he took her down again.

Sarah shivered and moved closer still.

The sudden clatter of loose debris just behind her and she turned around and yelped in shock.

Jareth turned too, lips curled back over his teeth. He lowered his defenses when Sarah dropped down to her knees and threw her arms around the dwarf. "Hedgehill," he greeted blandly, "How lovely."

"Hoggle," the dwarf managed in a strangled sort of way, "Get off!"

Sarah let go. "I thought you were one of the guards," she said.

Hoggle gasped and looked quickly around himself. "Where?" he asked, sounding absolutely terrified, "Where?"

"Calm yourself, Heggle," Jareth snapped, "We are not interested in you."

Hoggle gulped and tried to back away. "Well, er, I'll be seeing you later, then," he called, "If- if you're staying, of course. Only came to say hi. Bye bye." He was gone, haring down the corridor as fast as his legs could carry him.

Sarah spun around and glared at the Goblin King with something of her old fire. "You frightened him," she accused, "He only came to say hi."

"He said it. After which he left again. I don't see why you are upset by this," Jareth remarked. He turned around and walked off again.

Sarah was getting very tired of this. But she followed. Because she didn't know where she would end up if she took the wrong turning or the wrong fork in the tunnels. The décor she remembered; nothing had changed from that damp, dusty, rusted disuse of her last trip down. She even spotted a false alarm but he didn't respond when she passed him. She supposed it was because Jareth presumably didn't need to be warned out of his own oubliette system.

"We're almost there," he informed her, "Try not to scream this time. They won't touch you without my orders."

And with that slightly disturbing reassurance, Sarah was taken into a brightly lit cavern.

"We call it the Cathedral," Jareth chuckled, waved his hands to the enormously high ceiling, "Beautiful acoustics and we didn't even need to decorate."

He was right. The walls glowed and glittered with veins of silver, the natural pillars set into the stone smooth and curiously fluted. The long stalactites seemed to be lit with a natural light, shining icy cool in the not-quite-darkness.

Sarah blinked and opened her mouth.

Jareth had already made for the raised platform at the other end of the room. Pausing, he stopped and looked over his shoulder with one of those amused curls of his lips. "Join me, Sarah," he invited.

She was very uncertain. Until the shapes began to fold out of the shadow and then she ran to his side and kept close enough in case of emergencies. They wouldn't touch her unless he ordered it, but she preferred not to give them the chance to try anything.

Jareth took the two steps with a light tap of his heels and dropped elegantly into a seat at the long, carved table. He gestured to Sarah to sit with him.

She sat thankfully, her feet a little relieved for the respite.

And then the fanged human materialized unexpectedly from the crowd and came up the two shallow stairs to present himself to the Goblin King.

"Lyndon, sit down. How many this time?"

"Three, Jareth."

"Three more than we can afford," Jareth growled. He stared at the table and absently began to remove his gloves.

Sarah remembered those hands. They were very nice hands from what she remembered. She flushed a little again when she recalled how they had held on to her during their one dance.

Lyndon breathed in deeply and looked to his king with raised eyebrow.

Jareth gave a smile with no apology and then put the entire issue from his mind. "Have you eaten?" he asked. He noted that Sarah stiffened in her chair at the question.

Lyndon had too, and the Commander of Jareth's personal guard was staring at the girl with a very keen interest even as he shook his head in answer.

"Pel, refreshment," Jareth called.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Another guard ran to another side of the room and returned bearing a tray.

Sarah decided she like the heavy metal cups that were placed before all three of them. They looked unashamedly gothic and antique. She supposed they weren't real gold, but then that would be too much to expect.

"Just water for our guest," Jareth instructed quietly.

"Of course, Sire."

The dark earth jug was lifted from the tray and clear water poured carefully into her cup. The jug was left with her as Pel left the platform and melted back into the general array of bodies.

Lyndon opened the bottle and sniffed delicately at the contents before shrugging philosophically and courteously filling the Goblin King's cup first. "Not the best," he warned, "But it will serve."

"It will have to," Jareth remarked.

Lyndon smiled at the wry words and filled his own cup. He could smell the richness and wished it were fresh. It had been a good harvest but time dealt a cruel blow to even the best collections. He lifted his cup and sipped first. Nodding, he motioned to Jareth to drink his share.

Sarah was sipping at her water when she noted something- they weren't sipping. They drained their cups in long swallows and then greedily poured more. The movements were controlled but the haste was so clear she could see it tremble in their hands.

Not hands.

She looked down in horror at the appendages that clutched the cups, at the sharp, long nails and twisted, gnarled joints. Her eyes lifted higher and they were sitting back replete, lapping the last of the red traces from their mouths and lips, from sharp canines with pointed tips that looked as though they could rip through flesh without too much effort.

Sarah wasn't prone to fainting. She'd never fainted before in her life.

There was a first time for everything.


	3. Chapter 3

"Take her to my quarters," Jareth sighed. He flexed his right claw and watched the tendons move beneath the skin. He had expected better of her, but it seemed she was still scared of monsters. "Leave her there and return."

Pel saluted quickly and nodded to his companion to help. They lifted the girl between them and carried her further to the short cut in the back wall of the platform. Slipping through it, they set her down in the pile of fur and velvet. They left her there and went back to the Cathedral.

The Goblin King had returned to his public form and was calmly standing behind the chair she had used, drinking in the remains of her scent.

Lyndon was standing with him, gesticulating with his hands to the king's bedchamber. "She won't help us, Jareth. We frighten her."

"All the better. If charm won't work we can try force," Jareth replied negligently.

"It takes too long. Drain her now and you have the added bonus of her life in your veins. This is not a hard decision."

"On the contrary. If she realizes what she has become, she might decide to use that magic for her own needs."

Lyndon sighed and removed his belt from around his waist, opening the pouch to remove his handgun. The belt he handed to a younger vampire. The gun he slipped into his pocket. "I can only advise you," he warned, "And my advice is to end it now while she is vulnerable."

"So noted," Jareth agreed, moving away from the chair, "My way is better."

No one dared refute the arrogant statement.

One of the soldiers returned with a brace of rodent-like creatures slung over her shoulder. She dropped it to the ground and then presented herself to Jareth. "Your Majesty, may I approach?"

"Yes."

"The goblins are in an uproar. The rock creature that befriended the girl has returned to the City. They plan to execute him."

Jareth raised an eyebrow. "I really don't care."

"I- I thought you might want to…"

"Interfere as a sign of good faith?" he asked avidly. The guard looked confused. "Alright. Go back and stay the execution. Keep it locked up, however. She might want it later. By the by, how were they going to do it?"

"Poison."

"What kind?"

"Lacewing."

The Goblin King shared a look of amusement with his Commander. "A humane killing," he remarked.

Lyndon laughed and went back to cleaning his gun.

The guard bowed and left, returning to the outside world. Several others were already skinning the animals and expertly slicing them for food. A slight skirmish arouse when one surreptitiously raised a hand to lick the almost-fresh blood from his fingertips.

Jareth stayed with his guards for the night, resting in the cool darkness. They were a silent people in general, their strict self-control only adding to the economical use of movement and noise. A few played dice or cards. Others talked of mundane things and memories. One sat by himself and carved wood into animals of the Underground. Lyndon sat with three other guards, tending minor ailments and discussing what was known of the creature's apparently indestructible frame. Jareth stayed with them.

When the natural clock in their minds told them morning approached, the hunted rodents were placed in a pot and cooked. The drained blood was given to those vampires allotted fresh blood for the day. The others contented themselves with what was stored.

They ate, as all living creatures are wont to do, and then they set about preparing for the day. Weaponry was either put away or kept to hand in bedding. Utensils were washed and stacked. Personal hygiene was taken care of in the anteroom to the left, where a warm spring bubbled its way beneath the rock.

Jareth left them to it and went to what passed in these times for his bedchamber. He went in, lit the sconces on the wall and turned around.

Sarah was not asleep. She was sitting up, knees hugged to herself, thinking feverishly. She noticed him, but she didn't stop.

She didn't retreat either, and that pleased him. Seeing her faint had been quite disappointing.

"How did you sleep?" he asked her, keeping his voice low so as not to frighten her, "I hope you are rested."

"I need to go Aboveground," Sarah said sharply, "My Dad's going to be worried sick."

"A tragedy. Our business here is not yet done." Jareth shed his coat and unbuckled the wide belt slung on his hips.

This time Sarah moved. She almost fell over as her eyes went as big as saucers at the sight. "What are you doing?" she squeaked.

"Removing unnecessary layers." Jareth sat down on the edge of the bedding and tugged at his boots. The stockings beneath were removed as well and the lot were tossed untidily to the other side of the room. "There is food outside on the table and water in the jug. Try not to disturb my guards."

"You're going to sleep? I thought we were going to talk."

"Vampires sleep during the day, Sarah." He was deliberately casual. Better to tell her the truth without any drama.

"You're really a vampire."

"You knew as much." He waited for the screaming but she only cowered and looked frightened- frightened and cornered- like a rat preparing to fight because it knows it is going to die and doesn't actually like the idea. "You're shivering."

"Please, just let me go home."

"I told you I can't."

"I'm sorry about all of this. I didn't _know_ the world would fall apart if I said those words. I just wanted my brother back. You have to believe that I didn't mean it."

Jareth undid a few buttons for good measure. "Begging doesn't suit you," he said offhand, "Don't do it again."

"What do you want from me?" Sarah was slowly getting agitated, her hands clutching tightly at her jeans. "Why me?"

"I want you to stop lying to yourself. You knew I would bring you back here. And you knew you would agree to it. Once you have mastered honesty, we can proceed."

"You bastard."

"Apt, in a purely literal sense."

Sarah was out of worse insults. "You're lying to me," she snapped, "You always lie. You want some little innocent who'll walk right into your trap and let you take whatever it is you want, don't you?"

"Perhaps. What do I want from her?"

"Blood… I don't know. You know what you want. And you won't tell me because you know I'll fight you. You know it!"

"I know you will fight me. And I know I can overpower you." He sat up and looked very intently at her mouth. "I can take whatever I like from you and you can try to fight me but you won't win."

"You said the same thing about your Labyrinth. I beat that."

"I told you not to confuse the two. Fighting me will be harder."

"You really do just want my blood. Is it revenge?"

"Somehow you seem very unperturbed by that fact."

She frowned and squinted at him. "What are you talking about?"

He lifted his head and drew in a long breath. "No smell of fear or worry. And your voice is more interested than appalled."

"Why would I be appalled? I knew you were evil from the moment I met you. I just thought you were a Goblin King, not a vampire. But it all makes sense now. _Everything_ makes sense."

"It should."

"So why didn't you just set your guards on me the last time? You sent goblins."

"So many questions, Sarah. I didn't believe you would ever make it through the goblins in time. The Labyrinth itself- that was sheer luck. But the goblins were meant to stall you. Keep you in the City until your thirteen hours were up."

"It didn't work," she observed.

"No, it didn't. An error in judgment on my part." He looked her over with a detached kind of approval. "You have a refreshingly determined nature, Sarah. Most people would have concentrated on fighting me instead of getting the baby. You didn't."

"Well, you made it clear that Toby was what I needed to go for. You threw the crystal to him. I followed the crystal."

"Clever," he chuckled, "Very clever."

"Not really. It's just common sense," she argued, "Most of it was."

"You don't see the beauty of it, Sarah. Those who come here, who wish children away to a magical land with a magical king, they are dreamers. When they encounter a riddle, they don't stop to reason it out. They rely on instinct. Instinct leaves them with a fifty percent chance of being wrong. You reasoned it out. That makes it remarkable."

"For someone who's going to suck my blood, you sound approving."

He smirked at her, a slow smirk with a great amount of aware deliberation. "I never claimed not to admire you. I also never claimed to want to suck your blood."

"The one I don't believe. The other I also don't believe."

"Ah, but you are in the land of the unbelievable. Anything is possible here."

"Like a Vampire King, huh?" Sarah scoffed.

He tipped his head, knowing such scrutiny unnerved her. "Can it be we're having a civil conversation?"

She hesitated and he itched to find out why. "Yeah," she said reluctantly, "Yeah, you can call it that."

"Most surprising." He sat back and propped his chin in his hand, his elbows on his knees. "Would you like to leave the room? I won't stop you. There is food and water outside."

She looked down at the rich bedding, at the thick cushions and soft pillows. And Jareth. Somehow the picture went together, even if she didn't quite know how or why. But the reds and pale mauves and moss greens seemed the perfect backdrop to his pale colouring and stark clothing.

She shook her head and hugged her knees tighter to her chest.

Jareth watched her, kept silent for a little longer than was necessary. "None of them will hurt you," he said gently, "I told you as much when we came here."

"You didn't tell me you were all vampires."

"Does it make much difference?"

"Yes, it does."

"Intriguing. I wonder how."

Sarah didn't answer. She just pointedly raised her hand to rub her neck and shifted further away from him.

Jareth nodded and lay down again. "Then stay here," he said, "Sleep. You will probably find you have precious little of it down in the Underground. Times are rather exciting just now."

She blinked in surprise but Jareth had already shut his eyes, his entire body relaxing with just one long exhalation.

For a vampire, he was surprisingly human.

Maybe it was all a joke. Sarah went to sit with her back to the wall, far enough away that her skin didn't crawl having to share the bedding with him. He didn't move, but that could be because he was deeply asleep. He'd talked of not getting enough sleep before so it stood to reason that he was just exhausted.

He didn't look like he was breathing deeply, though. He didn't look like he was breathing at all! Sarah pushed that observation away with the blinding realization that Jareth had said all of them were vampires. All of them! But all of them had been in the sun in what seemed to be evening in the Goblin City. Vampires weren't supposed to be able to go out in the sun. It burned them. Perhaps in the Underground, though… no, no, no! They'd been out in the sun and they shouldn't have been able to do that. Therefore they were not vampires.

It was all just a joke.

Sarah leaned her head back against the wall, more relieved than she cared to admit even to herself.


	4. Chapter 4

Sarah stayed up most of the night contemplating her situation.

She was in a cave under the crumbling castle at the centre of the labyrinth. She was a 'guest' of the Goblin King who had told her quite seriously that he was a vampire. He had also told her that they had unfinished business, though what that could be she couldn't think. He was also currently asleep in the spacious, but still spacially limited square of furs and padding that seemed to pass as a bed. That in itself was not what worried her- sharing it with him worried her.

He was near enough that she could lean down, shuffle forward just a smidge and he'd be close enough for her to shake his shoulder.

She didn't want to shake his shoulder but the fact was that she could. That frightened her when included in the same body of thoughts as the term 'vampire'.

She was sitting close to a vampire and his guards were outside and far more dangerous. At least Sarah knew the one she was sharing the bedding with. The others were complete strangers and that much more dangerous for it.

Not that she trusted Jareth. Even without being a vampire he was dangerous. He used magic as a tool, wielding it to hurt and destroy. She could forgive him for taking Toby perhaps because, yes, she had asked for it. And in this strange world where magic existed, it was possible that even Jareth might not have a lot of choice in the matter. She couldn't forgive him for anything else, though. Not for the cleaners, not for the peach, and not for the end.

She'd won it at the end. She'd got to the Castle and he'd still pushed her, slithered around her like the worm he was.

Sarah took a deep breathe and calmed the raging annoyance that surfaced.

But what else had he wanted from her? Had he really expected her to take the crystal and let him have Toby? Not a chance.

"Stop thinking," he said very clearly.

Sarah jerked upright, blinking rapidly and shrinking back into the wall as she noticed that his eyes were open. "I wasn't," she said quickly, though what she was denying she couldn't have said.

He propped himself up on an elbow and studied her with no trace of having been in any kind of sleep at all. "Perhaps we should take a walk," he invited, "Since you have things on your mind."

Walk. Walk where? And would there be other people on this walk? Would this walk take them somewhere isolated where a girl could be overpowered without more than a brief struggle? "I'm fine here," she said brightly.

"A walk," he decided. "In the ruins of the Labyrinth," he added.

Sarah shivered and didn't move.

He got up and began to dress again, rolling up the long stockings over his legs. The boots went on next but he ignored the jacket. "Shoes," he instructed impatiently.

Sarah unfolded slowly from her corner, cramped and more than hopeful that some miracle would prevent the excursion. But miracles seemed in short supply in her vicinity. It was possible Jareth's frown drove them away.

She stalled as she exited the room, caught by the neat row of silent, unmoving bodies laid so carefully on the ground.

"They won't wake if we are quiet," Jareth said in her ear, "You can talk. But be careful, they deserve their rest."

She nodded but chose not to say anything. The word 'vampire' was screaming in her brain and she bit her lip, edging around the minefield that Jareth walked through so easily. One wrong step and she didn't know what would happen.

And then Jareth disappeared into the dark of the corridor away from the Cathedral and she had no choice but to walk faster, trying to keep up with him. She left the cavern behind with a sigh of relief.

"Still suspicious, Sarah?"

To her admirable credit, she didn't make a sound. But Sarah attributed that to sheer fright that shot her heart up into her throat and froze her tongue. She did jump, though, and whirl around.

Jareth was leaning against the wall, hidden in dark but leaning forward into the dim light, mocking smirk curving his thin lips. He laughed and brushed passed her, beckoning her on with a toss of his blond head.

Sarah gulped. "Don't do that," she blurted out, relief bleeding into insane bravery, "The next time I'll kick. And it'll hurt."

"I don't doubt. But who it will hurt is yet to be seen."

"Where are we going?"

"Outside."

The sun, Sarah realized, was up. And shining, as a risen sun usually does during the brightness of day. Which sent her doubts seesawing through her mind once more. If Jareth was really a vampire, how was it even possible? She would catch him out, now. He would laugh at her for believing all that nonsense with vampires. After all, who said only vampires needed to… drink… blood…

Sarah didn't want to know. She ended the entire discussion with herself by almost running into Jareth's straight back as he stopped abruptly in the exit.

Her heart flew up again into her throat.

"Give me your hand," he said abruptly, turning on her, "We can't go out there."

"Why not?"

"Give me your hand."

"What's out there that's so bad?" she demanded.

He raised an eyebrow and simply held out his hand with the word, "Must I force the issue?"

Sarah reluctantly gave her hand up to his grip.

Unfortunately, he was wearing gloves. When he'd had the time to put on gloves she didn't know but her fingers only closed around cool, worn leather.

He barely gripped before he let go.

Sarah blinked and reminded herself that his method of moving from one place to the next was never forceful. Places simply faded around him. Perplexing, perhaps, and not a little inclined to make him more egotistical than he already was, but whenever she'd seen him disappear to somewhere else, he'd just vanished. No spells, no glitter- not even a brief squint of concentration. He just went. Wherever. And this dark, dusty room was no different.

'Dark', naturally, drove all other thoughts from her head.

"The goblins ran away," he told her unexpectedly, "Scattered. Some continue to stay in the Goblin City. Others simply went elsewhere."

"Where else is there to go?"

"Lots of places," Jareth informed her, "Sit down if you'd like."

Sarah looked to the dilapidated chair he indicated and thought that it looked as though it would collapse if she sat on it. Shaking her dark head, she moved closer to a niche dug into the wall. It held an exotic statue that looked vaguely familiar.

"I see you found my dancer."

"I saw something like this in a book, once. It's Indian, isn't it? It's very pretty." She reached out a finger to touch the miniature face. "What metal is it?"

"Bronze," Jareth said. He watched her poke at it very carefully and didn't bother to tell her to be careful. The statue was old and precious, but it wasn't irreplaceable. A lot of his collection was old and precious. It lost its spark after a while.

"Alright." Sarah straightened up and turned around. "Let's talk turkey. Why am I here? What did I do this time?"

"Why, Sarah," Jareth grinned, "Do I need an excuse to bring you down here?"

"Right, you just enjoy my company," she snapped, "Come on, tell me the truth."

In answer, he narrowed his eyes and looked her dead in the eye, leaning closer as though he would hear her thoughts if he concentrated enough. "You never call me by name," he commented, "Do you realize that?"

"I might. That has nothing to do with it."

"It has quite a lot to do with everything. You don't call me by title and you don't call me by name."

She shrugged helplessly. "I don't need to. I thought it was all over. With Toby, I mean. After Toby."

"Wrong. You felt me. I know that. And you never once _called_ me." He stopped, raising an eyebrow and smirking in that provoking way of his. He even leaned against the wall on the other side of the closed window from her, resting on a crooked elbow with the other hand planted on a cocked hip.

All angles, Sarah thought, that was what Karen called it. The description fit. From the spiked locks of hair to the clean lines of his face and figure, he was all angular.

"Why was that, Sarah?"

"I didn't need to call you," she shrugged, "The whole thing was done when I got Toby back."

"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah," he laughed, almost singing the name in his smoky voice, "You really believe it was all over with Toby. You never once expected consequences?"

"Nothing that needs me to come back here," she said firmly. An awful thought presented itself. "You're not going to take him back, are you?"

"The baby? No. Unless you wish him away again."

"What happens if I do?"

"I'm not sure," Jareth returned.

Sarah nodded and twitched at the heavy curtain between them.

"It strikes me the room is abnormally dark for your eyes," Jareth murmured, suddenly grasping the edge of the curtain.

In reflex Sarah tightened her grip but the cloth only pooled at her feet, the railing broken. Uselessly she held on, eyes wide as she stared from the torn cloth to the Goblin King.

The Goblin King in turn stared out the window, directly up into the smoke-hazed sky. "A good day for these times," he assured her, "The fires must be tiring."

"What fires?"

"The forests," Jareth said, "The fieries left their lakes in search of the girl who cheated in their game." He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "They set fire to the dry undergrowth."

"Oh."

"The arrogance in you leaves me breathless," Jareth continued softly, "The determination to pretend that nothing else exists beyond your thoughts and dreams. You throw responsibility out the window as though it were a broken toy."

Sarah found her tongue was having a hard time forming words. "I didn't do this," she managed, joining him at the window to stare wildly out over the lands. She almost expected to see bright flames leaping and dancing red-gold in the grey sky. "You can't blame this on me! It was all an accident."

She might just as well not have spoken.

"The strange part is that little girls like you are usually contained, kept hidden in one spot where you can do no damage. But when you get loose… oh, the fireworks."

He looked down at her, upper lip curling back in a snarl and a grimace, those sharp canines somehow longer and sharper than she had ever seen them.

And the flames. They didn't dance against a grey sky but they certainly danced in those black pupils. Pinpricks of red light that flickered and pulsed as the urges themselves did.

Sarah backed away, a moan caught in her throat.

Jareth only watched her, standing proud and unaffected in the sunlight, a mocking smile on his parted lips, a knowing hunger in his face.

Sarah sank into the chair and covered her head, not wanting to see this. If she pretended hard enough, this whole world would fade away. This whole place would disappear. There would be no Underground, no goblins, and no vampires. There would be no demonic King standing there with the light of human reason guiding his quick tongue.

"The Underground is not done with you, Sarah," Jareth told her. His voice echoed eerily around her ears. "Neither am I."

When she looked up he was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: An uncommonly long chapter, but there was a place I wanted to go that a shorter chapter wouldn't allow for.

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"Sarah?"

Sarah jerked upright and blinked her eyes rapidly.

Hoggle wobbled up to her and peered into her face. "You weren't sleeping, here, were you?" he asked anxiously.

Sarah was certain she had been, but she shook her head and wiped her mouth. "No, I was thinking. Hi, Hoggle. How are you?"

"I've been better," he grumbled, "Come on! It's not safe for you to be around here."

The events of the past days sprang to her mind and Sarah stood up quickly, panic surging in her blood. She remembered the Goblin King at the window- strange and feral and _hungry_. So unbelievably hungry!

"I didn't know he was a vampire," she told Hoggle seriously.

He looked just as seriously back at her- "What's a vampire?"

Sarah didn't answer right away. She stood up, stretched and followed Hoggle out of the room.

She didn't remember very much about the Castle from her first trip through it. The vague impression of stone and dirt was the best she could come up with. Silence, too. Deathly silence.

"Why'd you come back?" Hoggle demanded, taking her down a set of stairs, "Watch out! Some of them's missing."

Sarah yelped when her foot sank right through what should have been solid stone. She stumbled, falling forward to avoid dropping through the non-existent floor to her death. Falling into Hoggle's back, the ordeal ended with the both of them rolling to the bottom of the staircase.

Sarah wanted to cry. It was just one more degradation on top of everything else she'd had to suffer. Could nothing go right for her? It wasn't the Underground, either. This always happened! She tripped over her own feet whenever she was late to class. She burned anything she tried to cook. She always spilled her drink, whether it was soda or water. She always lost her books and her money.

It was too much! And why her?

"I'm going to cry," she announced to no one in particular.

"No, no," Hoggle pleaded, stumbling to his feet somehow, "Er… don't cry. No need to, is there? Nothing to cry about. Just a little fall and… you're not hurt, are you?"

She looked up at his worried face and that enormous nose impressed itself upon her again. Unbidden, she laughed, even if it did catch on the lump in her throat. "No," Sarah sighed, "I'm not. Not hurt. It's just… Oh, Hoggle, it never goes right, does it?"

Hoggle didn't see what was so funny about anything so he fussed and grumbled until she managed to stand up. He was still grumbling when he shooed her out of the Castle itself and far away from the tunnel with the vampires.

"You never trust the Undergrounders," he said sagely, "Dangerous, they are."

"Undergrounders?"

"They live under the ground," he pointed out, "They don't like the sun. Some say it makes 'em weak but I don't believe it."

"Vampires aren't supposed to go out in the sun," Sarah added, thinking it over with a frown, "Maybe it's just something magical in the Underground."

"What's a vampire?" Hoggle asked again.

"Oh, creatures that drink people's blood. They're not alive, so they have to drink blood from other people."

"And what did you call them again?"

"Vampires."

Hoggle nodded his head vigorously and said, "It's them," in a satisfied sort of way.

"But Jareth didn't seem like any kind of vampire." _'You never call me by name or title.'_ Sarah pushed the memory away with a shiver. She didn't want to call him, ever. She made a mental note not to mention his name again in case it summoned him. "I don't understand."

"Sarah, why'd you come back?" Hoggle asked again.

Sarah didn't know how to tell him. She didn't understand it very much herself. "I don't know." It was hard to say that she just known he would come back. What had he said about it?

'_You never once expected consequences?'_

"He came to find me, up there," she said, kicking at a stump of bark, "He said it wasn't finished."

Hoggle coughed but didn't say anything. They walked for a while, changing direction every few minutes because Hoggle was certain the vampires would be after them at any minute. Sarah didn't trust Jareth's overtures of protection very much, either; she went along with Hoggle's clumsy attempts to disguise their trail.

Eventually they stopped when the Labyrinth loomed before them, blackened and broken.

It looked quite sad, Sarah realized, like a big dog that couldn't do anything because it was chained up in the backyard.

"How did this happened, Hoggle?"

The dwarf scratched his head. "It just happened," he explained, "_He _said it was you."

"How could I do this? All I did was take the baby back."

"It's magic," Hoggle said sagely, "You changed the magic."

Sarah shook her head and bent down to pick up a piece of stone. It was still warm in her palm and somehow that didn't surprise her. The Underground was nothing that it seemed. So why wouldn't stone be warm? Nothing to say it was impossible.

"Sarah..."

"This makes no sense."

"Sarah?"

"How could something like this happen, Hoggle? How can I have anything to do with all this? I was talking to the Goblin King, not to the Labyrinth," she continued, trying to reason this out with both Hoggle and herself, "All I said was…"

"Don't say it!"

"Why can't I say it? It's true."

"Sarah," Hoggle gulped, tugging on the edge of her shirt.

"Jareth," Sarah used the name deliberately, "Has no power over me."

"She said it," Hoggle moaned.

"She certainly did," another voice said snidely.

Sarah new better than to whirl around and look surprised. She tensed a little because she couldn't help it and then she took a deep breath and turned very casually. "What do you want?"

Lyndon bowed without a smile. "His Majesty demands your return," he said, "Follow me."

Sarah dug in her heels. "What does _he_ want?"

"If you follow me, he will tell you himself," Lyndon pointed out ironically. He made to start back but Sarah hadn't moved from her place. He stopped and looked at her, superciliously looking down his aquiline nose at her.

"I'm talking to a friend," Sarah said formally, "Please tell His Majesty that I will come back as soon as I finish."

The vampire was not used to taking orders from girls. He had not been brought up to it, and his turning had not put him into a position to change his ways. He chose to follow another of his kind because he was not a leader. He refused to change for this _child_.

Sarah saw his hand move very openly to the holster by his side.

"Humans imagine the most extraordinary means of killing," he said, drawing the gun almost negligently, "Stupidly, they don't know how to control the hands those weapons fall into."

Sarah caught her breath. "The King doesn't want me dead," she blurted out. Only because her mouth never had stopped getting her into trouble. She could have kicked herself for it, but her lips had moved and the words had dropped out before she could stop herself. Sarah felt the same paralysing fear Jareth had inspired when the gun levelled at her.

"He ordered me to take you back any way that I had to."

Hoggle was gone. Sarah looked around for help- though what help a dwarf could be was beyond her- and Hoggle had left. She couldn't blame him; Hoggle was a coward. She felt a bit like running too.

"Aren't vampires supposed to use swords or something?"

"Vampires use a lot of weapons. Guns are efficient in the Underground."

Sarah moved very slowly, walking towards him because she reasoned it out in her head that he would probably lower that gun if she did as she was told. If she went back quietly, he might even put the gun away. "Alright," she soothed, "I'll come with you."

"Good." The gun went back.

Lyndon didn't feel up to chasing the girl if she chose to run away. Humans always exerted energy in quite the wrong way. Vampires liked the chase.

He caught the girl's arm as she attempted to walk past him and lifted the wrist in his hands. One finger on her pulse and he knew that she was petrified, that her heart was pounding with fear and adrenaline, that her brain was racing with a jumble of thoughts. Her green eyes snapped to him and he could see the pupils dilate as she tried to pull away.

He sniffed delicately at her wrist to inhale the scent of living flesh. The finger on her pulse changed, claw dangerously close to skin.

"A fact for you, Milady," he murmured, "Vampires do not bite to kill. They bite to excite, when they mean only to taste or tease. Teeth hardly ever leave a wound wide enough to sup. To kill, we use our claws."

The claw pressed just a little harder. Not enough to break young, supple flesh, not even enough to bruise. But enough to be a warning.

"We tear open the vein," he ended, "And that is a wound wide enough to feed from."

Sarah didn't know where she got the strength, but she opened her mouth to protest, to plead, to do anything that got her hand out of his grasp, and she said, "Get your filthy hands off me. Jareth will not be pleased if I tell him."

Lyndon dropped her hand with an unreadable stare from his fiery eyes. "Follow me, Milady," he said.

Sarah seethed, relief fuelling her anger until she wanted to kick the straight back she was following. She was tired of following people. From one place to the other. Not just in the Underground, Aboveground too. She'd never wanted to move to a small town, to move to a new house with a new family.

She'd been led around like a bear on a chain for too long!

There was a decision to be made here, Sarah decided. She'd waited for Jareth to get her back Underground because, yes, she'd known at the back of her mind that there would be consequences. She'd followed him around and let him scare her and mock her and confuse her and now she was done with all that.

He could send her back.

Jareth met her in the Cathedral, back to his human form and smiling sarcastically as he approved aloud of the colour in her face. "The walk evidently did you good," he said.

Sarah tilted her chin, folded her arms and centred herself. There was no use shouting. Shouting never got her anywhere. If she behaved like a child, Jareth would treat her like one. The trick was to be definite and clear- "Jareth, I want to go home," she said bluntly.

"Oh?" He mimicked her position, hands on his hips and faint smile on his lips.

Treating her just like a child, damn him! "Yeah. I have no interest in the Underground and no interest in anything you have to say. My family must be sick with worry and I'd like to go home to them."

"So soon, Sarah? We were only getting started. Now, come. The night is almost upon us and there is a lot to do."

"You haven't heard me right," she said mulishly, "Send me back now."

Jareth looked at Lyndon over Sarah's shoulder and his eyes narrowed. "What happened out there?" he asked quietly.

"She spoke with the dwarf," Lyndon supplied woodenly.

"And?"

"And nothing," Sarah snapped, pushing her way stubbornly back into the conversation, "This has nothing to do with Lyndon." She wouldn't tell tales. The vampire hadn't hurt her; Jareth's suspicions were enough to assure her that he wouldn't unless he wanted to brave disobeying a direct order from the Goblin King. "Send me back."

Jareth looked her in the eye and weighed his option. "Impossible," he said.

"Do I have to say the words?"

He raised an eyebrow and this time the smile was thin and not very pleasant. "We have established that fact the last time, Sarah. Believe me, I have no wish to keep you longer than I have to."

Somehow he always made her feel a burden- small and childish and getting in the way. Sarah didn't like that. It hurt a side of her that she didn't want to think about. "Good. Then we'll both feel happier if you send me back."

"No."

"I'll say the words. I will."

"You may try. You've done all the damage on that score that you can do."

She reddened and noticed all the activity in the Cathedral had stopped. The vampires were all watching her, hostile and suspicious and menacing. She moved away from them, turning her back on most of them so she could concentrate on their leader alone. That was the weak spot- the one they feared more than they hated her.

"You have no power over me," Sarah snapped.

The vampires fanned out around her though she couldn't notice it. Not with her back to them. Jareth noticed it; he expected it. He didn't react however. He wouldn't give her that satisfaction. Even if he made brief eye contact with Lyndon and shook his head slightly in warning.

"Let me go," Sarah warned, "I'm finished here."

She wasn't finished. The Goblin King knew that. But he wouldn't be rushed, pushed into making announcements before she was prepared for them. That way lay trouble, for she would make a decision in haste.

Jareth began to smile. "I propose a deal," he said silkily, "A trade, if you will."

He reached up a hand to cup his chin in thought. "My goblins have something of yours. I can help you regain it. For a price, naturally."

Sarah didn't believe him. "What would I want from the goblins?"

"Do we have a deal?"

"This is all another game. No. Send me back." But she was thrown off balance.

Jareth moved a little closer, lowering his voice as if offering something for her ears alone. Something confidential. "You will want to save him, Sarah."

"Toby," she gasped.

"No, no, Sarah. Not Toby. Your friend. The monster."

"Ludo?"

"The monster will be released in exchange for… shall we say one day? You, Sarah, will promise to stay for one day in my company if I let the monster go."

"The only monster around here is you. Ludo is the sweetest, gentlest beast in the Underground. He never hurt anybody. You can't kill him."

"I wasn't going to," Jareth pointed out, "The goblins can do that on their own."

"That's not fair!"

"And what have we always said about fairness?"

Green eyes kindling, Sarah marched forward. The Goblin King was standing there with that smug grin on his face and even if she risked death she wasn't about to let him think he could walk all over her.

"It's not fair," she seethed, "To threaten to kill Ludo because he didn't do anything. I did. I ran your Labyrinth and I beat it. I broke your Castle and if you want to get revenge, then do it to me."

Jareth went rigid even if the smirk didn't fade. He gazed down at Sarah's face and pursed his lips, thinking it over. He could see Lyndon over her shoulder and his second in command had his gun in hand. Sarah didn't know it and Jareth had only to nod his head.

"You can't touch me," Sarah taunted, "Because you have no power over me. So you'll go for innocent beasts like Ludo instead?"

Jareth felt his own lip curl. She was taunting him! The damned girl was digging her own grave in some reckless desire to protect her friend!

The gun was aimed at her back and Jareth had only to nod. Not even that. Just to look up. She wouldn't even feel it. And the trouble would end. The Underground would be at peace. Jareth would see to that.

"If you would stay," he said coldly, "I would not have to bargain. Give me your word. I give you mine that Ludo will be set free. Unharmed, might I add."

"You're unbelievable," she breathed, shaking her head in a daze, "And what happens if I stay?"

"You stay with my protection."

"I'm supposed to trust you?"

Jareth shrugged. "What choice do you have?"

She looked up into his eyes, looking from one to the other. "Alright," she said disgustedly, "Alright. I'll stay for one day. Promise to send me home unharmed after that."

"As you wish."

Later, Lyndon sat with his King at the table in the Cathedral, placing the unused gun on the table between them. "You made four promises to force one day more from her."

"False promises, Lyndon. You heard them."

"But you made them."

Jareth leaned forward, lowering his voice and somehow sounding harder and more lethal. "What were you proposing I do? I had no other choice."

Lyndon looked pointedly down to the gun.

"She will keep her promise," Jareth told him, "She always does. And I will keep mine. No one is to touch her."


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. Life's busy right now. I'll update as often as I can.

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Jareth did not join her that day.

Sarah slept through the rest of the second night, tired from her argument. When she woke, the empty room made no sense to her. She looked out and the vampires were in their neat rows. Daylight, then. But Jareth wasn't with her.

She went back and stayed mostly awake in a corner of the bedding, back against the wall and knees pulled to her chest.

She waited for him, because surely he would come. He had to. Vampires slept during the day. Besides, she had said things. Strange things, now she thought of it. Had she really believed he would send her back if she ordered him to? The Goblin King didn't want her here, himself. Why would he keep her in Underground for pleasure? Certainly it wasn't for her conversation!

Sarah yawned her way through an hour, relentlessly replaying every word of the past day. Jareth would return and he would have a lot to say. Some of it might not be pleasant to listen to. Sarah was determined to be firm. And for that, she had to get her story straight.

Fact, Sarah didn't want to be in the Underground. Whatever _he_ said, whatever the Labyrinth needed, she didn't want to be a part of it. There was too much at stake. For her, at least.

Vampires!

When it came down to it, Sarah supposed she feared that the most. Vampires were demons, for want of a better word. They killed for fun and for food. They drank blood. Labyrinths were vaguely disturbing to Sarah's mind, but she found nothing wrong with goblins, no matter how ugly or misshapen. Ludo was such a gentle creature and Sir Didymus… well, he wasn't much of a threat, was he?

"Everything else is so easy," she whispered to herself, falling easily into her habit of conversing out loud with no one, "Everything else in the Underground looks funny and sounds funny. They're not dangerous."

No, they weren't dangerous. Jareth had been the most dangerous of them all and even he hadn't exactly harmed her as just the Goblin King.

"He set the cleaners on me," she remembered, "That was dangerous."

It _was_ dangerous. Those blades had been sharp and the tunnel had been narrow. Would he have let her die down there in the tunnels? What would be the point of it? Babies weren't worth murdering people for, were they? But then, if Jareth was a vampire, and vampires were everything that humans believed they were, then worthiness didn't enter into the picture. Jareth would kill her because she had insulted him and he could give that order.

"But I didn't die," she argued, "And he didn't do anything like that again."

It didn't make sense.

None of the arguments floating around made sense. Why had things gone as they had? How could she have beaten the Labyrinth at all if Jareth was really trying to stop her? For a vampire and a magician, his attempts at stopping her had been inane at best. At worst, they were stupid.

Sarah couldn't understand it. She stayed up all day, trying to understand. Somehow, the need to settle this with herself seemed just as important as keeping awake for Jareth's wrath. It wasn't very long, she realized. The day didn't last so long. The grinding sound of a low growl roused her from a half-sleep to find a vampire in the doorway.

Sarah didn't shriek. She did flatten herself against the wall in pure terror.

The vampire came in, growling low in her throat at the sight of the mortal, but didn't offer her harm. Instead, she crossed to a sturdy metal trunk in one corner and removed a few items of dark clothing that she carried off jealously.

Sarah blinked her heavy eyelids and concluded the night had begun.

She emerged into the Cathedral and the brief glow of the veined walls lit the surreal monotony of a family of vampires awakening.

Lyndon wasn't present either.

Sarah sidled in and took a seat at the table. The pile of clothing taken from Jareth's sleeping quarters was sitting at the table too but she didn't dare to touch it. She didn't want to give the vampires any reason to turn on her when Jareth wasn't around.

For the most part the vampires ignored her. As Pel commented to his companions, "One good mouthful isn't worth it."

Jareth had sworn a lot of very graphic revenge in blunt but beautiful prose for anyone who tried.

Sarah didn't know the particulars but she knew what she had seen. And what she had seen the night before in the Cathedral had been Jareth protecting her. She trusted his actions more than his words. They were harder to decipher but far more honest, to her way of thinking.

"Water," a vampire said shortly, setting a tray down on the table.

Sarah nodded and kept her eyes trained on the female in case of emergencies.

Nothing happened. The vampire turned and walked away, collecting up her belonging and stowing them into one of a collection of bags lying tumbled against the lit walls. One backwards glance from lit eyes and even that tenuous connection was gone, stalking out of the Cathedral with two others.

Sarah wasn't particularly thirsty. She was hungry though.

Pel was watching her, noticed the tapping of the finger against the rim of the heavy glass. Pel wasn't particularly old- as either human or vampire- and he hadn't been in the family long. A recent convert, he liked to call it. Lyndon was still trying to figure out why Jareth had burdened him with such a one. But Pel was biddable enough and he had learned to carry out his orders.

"Food?" he asked bluntly, raising a hand at the table.

Sarah was startled but nodded.

Pel nodded back and went to one corner, gathering up something else and carrying it in his hands towards her.

The plate he set down before her, controlled movement noticeably not disturbing anything that lay upon it. The bowl he set to the side.

"Anything else?" he demanded.

Sarah looked from the grayish slices on the plate to the grayish mess in the bowl. Different textures and different grays, but they both looked unappetizing. "Um, what is this?" she asked timidly.

Pel had his orders, but he didn't like them much. Vampire families were close and a hurt to the family was a personal one. "Food," he answered shortly.

"Right." Sarah looked at the grey slices and poked them. "Is this meat?"

"Something of the kind."

Sarah looked up and sat back. "I just want to know what I'm eating, that's all. I don't mean to be rude about it."

"You weren't," Pel told her. Stiffly, carelessly, and while he walked away.

Sarah shook her head at his back and poked the gray slices against. They yielded to her poking so she concluded they would not feel like cardboard. Picking one up in her hands, she nipped at the corner.

Sticky clear juices ran down directly, staining her lips and very likely her fingers too. Sarah didn't like it.

The gray mess was better, nothing more or less than a type of porridge. Sarah wasn't all that fond of porridge but it was familiar. It tasted decent too. She finished the bowl and, as a final act of defiance, carried it back to Pel herself.

Pel drew level and tipped his chin enquiringly.

"Where do I wash them out?" Sarah said nicely, "Thank you. The stuff was good."

He took them from her. "We _can_ cook," he said, "Eternity is a long time to perfect such skills, don't you think?" He vanished in the direction of the stream.

Sarah went back to the platform. She stayed there for the longest moment, feeling time crawl slowly passed her. Breathing. Just breathing. No need to think. The Cathedral was enormous and silent as a tomb. So Sarah breathed. And fell into the peculiar rhythm of clarity that her trip through the Labyrinth had shown her.

Jareth found her there, green eyes turned up to the ceiling, lips pursed as if she were concentrating. He watched her for a moment, automatically taking note of who was left in the dwelling place and who wasn't, but his eyes never strayed too far from her. His mind had never left.

"Such trouble," he commented to himself.

Sarah looked across to him. And was that relief he could see, dancing briefly over the serene countenance? He smiled and made his way over.

"There, now," he said mildly, "Are vampires that bad?"

Sarah blinked at the off-hand friendly comment, trying to find the sarcasm from sheer habit. It was conspicuously absent. For now. "So far so good," she said cautiously.

"Suspicion does not suit you, Sarah. I told you to trust me."

"I'm trying." It was true, much though she hated to admit it. What else could she do? Jareth could keep her safe and had promised to do so. No point in distrusting him and getting herself in worse trouble. "Why did you want one more day?"

He only laughed and extracted a flask from his clothing with a flourish. "I would offer some, but I fear this isn't to your tastes."

She made a face as he took a long swallow of its contents. "That's disgusting."

"So is drowning," Jareth said tartly, "So glad I don't need air in my lungs anymore." He sat down and continued, "Forgive my negligence. This is not how I planned to spend your one day."

"Let me guess- a picnic in an oubliette?" Sarah snapped.

"What have we said about suspicion?" Jareth returned. He even felt the brief stirring of annoyance again. It didn't last long. "Try to believe I mean you no harm. We have business to conclude and snapping doesn't help. Do we have a deal?"

Sarah nodded grudgingly. She took a deep breath, relaxing. Jareth was making no mention of her outburst from the previous day.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked, looking up with a polite smile.

"Yeah. Thanks. Where- where were you?"

The smile turned to a more familiar smirk. "Missed me, Sarah?" He chuckled a little at her annoyed frown. "I had business to attend to. You wouldn't have liked it."

"Oh? Stealing babies again?" Sarah wanted to bite her tongue out for such a blatant breach of good manners but the damage was done. She braced herself for the volcanic eruption.

Surprisingly enough, Jareth answered her question peacefully- "No. The Labyrinth is too damaged to respond to wishes at the moment. We have no more sources of fresh food." He sipped thoughtfully at the bottle in his hand, "I shall have to organize an external food source- trips to the Aboveground and that sort of thing."

Sarah tried to keep her end of the bargain. Tried not to say what she thought of such a plan, such a trip. Tried not to cover her ears and fret that she couldn't do anything to stop it.

"This makes you angry," Jareth observed.

"I'm listening to a vampire planning to kill innocent people."

"Why is that hard for you to hear? Even a vampire must needs eat."

"Personally," Sarah told him, "Personally I wish vampires didn't exist."

"Ah, now, Sarah, don't be like that. We are attempting to be gracious with you. Politeness decrees that you return the favour."

Sarah glared morosely at Jareth, all too aware that he was more amused at her jibes than frustrated. He was watching her from his seat, cupping his face in his hands as he leaned his elbows on the table, smirking treacherously with those glossed lips.

"I'm sorry." She took a gulp of water and felt the coolness drown her frustration.

"You can ask," he told her.

"I don't want to ask anything."

"Yes, you do. I can see it in your face."

Sarah rolled her eyes at that. "Alright." She could think of something to ask an arrogant person who thought he knew everything. "Why do you make people run the Labyrinth? And how come you're the Goblin King? Why do the Goblins serve you?"

"More than one question. This is trust indeed. The goblins serve me because I am the Goblin King. I am the Goblin King because I created the goblins. I make people run my Labyrinth because they do not want their children to become my goblins. A very simple set of questions."

"So you _can_ turn people into goblins."

Jareth hesitated. Leaning forward, the amused look vanished from his long face, leaving a curious wariness in its place. "How much do you really want to understand, Sarah? I won't tolerate screaming and curses," he warned, "It's no secret, but I would prefer a calm working relationship."

"On second thoughts don't tell me."

Jareth tapped the table as if he had suspected that all along and went back to lounging in his seat and sipping from the flask in his hand. All the while he kept his strange eyes on Sarah's face, noting the ebb and flow of her blood and her thoughts. Humans never could learn to control themselves; their blood was too hot, too quick and eager. Youth sped the process up yet more and Sarah could not hope to hide her real mind from him.

"Vampires need blood," he began, "And magicians need magic. I am, unfortunately, both. Along with that, I am responsible for the safety of my guards. My family, to use the typical vampiric term. The Underground provides safety. It does not provide human blood."

"There are animals," Sarah offered.

Jareth waved the suggestion away impatiently. "They taste foul. Humans are closer to our natural state and so their blood is best. Unless we are to evolve into creatures like your friends. To provide human blood, we originally set up raiding parties. Easy enough to plan, but horribly taxing on my time and energy. I had to transport them."

"So you stole children?"

"So I looked for more magic," he stressed, "Children are far more magical than adults, you know. Very open to imagination and impulses. Instincts, too. First I took those I found on the streets, whom no one would miss and would be better dead…"

Sarah whimpered and clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide at the callous indifference.

"… it was less than efficient. Killing brought unwanted attention and magic does not rely on blood. Magic is in the soul. But appearing to a child and leaving them to speak of it was not efficient either. So I had to devise another plan."

Sarah lowered her hand, convinced that only this infuriating man could make a plan that didn't involve killing people sound so tiring. The way he said it, with that little inflection and that little sigh!

"So the Labyrinth was created."

She waited for a moment. "That's it?"

"Did you want minute detail?"

She looked at the flask and it was a normal flask. Her dad had one of them but he didn't take it out much.

Jareth watched her. He was force-feeding her information in bite-sized pieces, trying to get her to absorb as much as was possible without knowing it. If she thought about it too much, she would get confused. He couldn't afford that.

"The children provide me with humanity," he murmured, "The way you see me is from them. I can't appear to a human looking as I should."

"But none of the others look like proper vampires either," she pointed out skeptically, "Why do you need children for that?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't last long, the illusion. And vampires are weak creatures."

"What?"

"Weak. Fundamentally. Too complaisant and too unoriginal. Look at them. They _still_ fight with swords," Jareth snorted, glancing over his shoulder, "It was worse when I was first changed. The whole order was steeped in tradition. Masters and apprentices and the childer not allowed to do more than steal the leftovers in exchange for a look. Starve a vampire enough, or bait it, and it will leave its lair in a rage. A stupid race, we are, sometimes."

Sarah opened her mouth and shut it again.

"Not that humans are much better. You are weak and your reflexes are poor. Your minds are incapable of fully experiencing the possibilities of creation. But you try to make up for it. You try to adapt. I admire that about humans. And their determination, of course. Vampires prey on the weak but the humans, they fight the Gods."

"You use children to make you human?"

"The semblance of humanity, yes. It grows a little warped, perhaps, but then I _am_ a vampire. I also do them a service. They are not wanted, they are not valued. I take them away to a place where they can be happy, oblivious even."

"You turn them into goblins."

He examined his gloves. "An unhappy side-effect of taking their humanity, yes. I take their physical beauty, their youth, their strength and leave them the rest. Goblins are very happy being what they are. They know no better."

"You monster."

"No," he was particularly serious about this, "Not a monster. At first, yes. I took the children and used those who wished them away for feeding. I suffered a few side-effects. Can you guess what they were?"

"Your conscience wouldn't let you sleep at night?"

"I sleep during the day and I have no conscience, as such. When I became a vampire, I gave up my humanity and chose to live outside of human society. My conscience, as you put it, or finer feeling, as I put it, died. No, what happened was that I stole humanity. And there were so many that I could not handle it all. I chose a better system. I created the Labyrinth and gave the wishers a choice- take the dreams or run the Labyrinth. If they ran the Labyrinth, I would seduce them."

"What?"

"Seduce them," Jareth repeated amiably, enjoying the high-pitched squeak of disbelief, "Having them offer what I need is more enjoyable than taking it. The battle makes the blood sweeter. Makes the victory taste better."

"You didn't with me," Sarah blurted.

Jareth smirked and didn't say anything to that. He ignored it, in fact, because they weren't quite ready to go in that direction. He could envision all sorts of awkward questions arising from replying to that statement.

"The best part," he assured her, "Is that the goblins age. Not mentally, but physically. Dark, rich, mature blood is perfect. Childhood blood is not really pleasurable. But in emergencies, we can use the goblins for feeding. We choose not to, however, they don't make an attractive meal."

"I'm not listening to this."

"Why? Is it too horrendous?" Jareth laughed, "Too much to swallow?"

"How can you do it," Sarah asked, "You grew up a human. Okay, you need blood. In certain ways I can understand that, but you take pleasure in it."

"Sarah, if I didn't, would I be able to stand an eternity of this?" he reminded her.

She clicked her tongue in exasperation and bit her nails, trying to sort out the jumbled bits of information he had thought to throw her way. "So if you take only the good things out of the children, how come you're not a ray of sunshine in this dark world?" Sarah asked.

Jareth chuckled but only indicated his wrist. "I did tell you- I use the children for magic and I take blood from the challengers."

"You've told me that. I don't see how it relates."

"The base emotions are all in the heat of the blood- lust, passion, greed, selfish concern. The children give me the good, if you like, but the bad is stronger, more mature. The children supply good things, but the blood is stronger and older and more potent."

Sarah shook her head and tried to understand it. "I'm still not absolutely getting it."

"Compare it to the effect of alcohol and fruit juice upon your senses. You can drink any amount of fruit juice that you like. It is good for you; it fills your body with health and vitality. A cupful of alcohol will fill you with visions and dancing and freedom the like of which fruit juice can never experience. It is the same with this."

"My logic tells me this is bad," Sarah confessed, "It tells me I should be disgusted and completely hate you for all time."

Jareth lifted his wrist and nipped lightly at the flesh under her gaze. "And your blood?" he murmured.

"Hates you," Sarah said simply, "Because my logic finds you fascinating."

"You said your logic hates me."

"That's why it's fascinated. Because I hate you. I do. You're evil and what you're doing is wrong. You can't treat people like supply cupboards! You deliberately trick them so you can kill them. Do you even get that?"

"When I lived in your territory, you hunted my kind. I see no reason not to return the favour," Jareth dismissed, "Of course I understand it. A predator will hunt. The prey has to be trapped because prey has the annoying habit of saving its neck."

Sarah curled in on herself, fighting the side of her brain that pointed out all of this was purely logical. Even admirable in some ways. It was so feral, so profound in such a basic way. And yet it was too simple! It was flawed; it had to be even if its reasons were so logical. It had to be flawed because the outcome felt so wrong!

Jareth watched her churn the idea over mentally, digging her fingers into her scalp as she did when particularly agitated by something. He quite enjoyed it, in fact. It had been a long time since he had done this with such a mind as hers.

She was fundamentally innocent. She believed in the good of the world and all that. Jareth didn't. Jareth believed in strength and power and surviving any way he could.

It was war- even if Sarah didn't know it- a minor, miniscule battle of wills where one was essentially of the dying race that tried to do the right thing, and the other was of the sort that knew right and wrong weren't important.

Jareth watched Sarah battle her own uncertainties in her head and he could smell her frustration and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled from the tension she generated and he wasn't going to be soft on her. He wasn't going to give her anything less than a full fight. And he hoped she would come through the fire unscathed. But he feared she wouldn't.


	7. Chapter 7

"An accident," Lyndon said promptly. He didn't look up from the gun he was playing with, "Pure accident."

Sarah sat down hesitantly on the other side of the table. "What do you mean- an accident? Did something go wrong?"

Lydon glanced up briefly, laughing internally at the very innocent confusion- "Haven't you noticed? The rest of us have no magical aptitude."

"I thought it was just a skill."

"Really."

Sarah knew who that flat mockery reminded her of, and she couldn't help but bristle. "Yeah, really."

"You are quite wrong, you know," Lyndon said calmly, not in the least concerned with the hostility directed his way. "We are more attuned to magic than humans are- yes. After all there is nothing particularly demonic about us."

"You kill people and drink their blood," Sarah said tartly, "I call that demonic."

"More magical," Lyndon dismissed, checking the bullet chamber, "People will not willingly give us their blood and we must survive."

"Well, I still call it demonic. You're not alive; you don't need to breathe or anything."

"Define anything," Lyndon interrupted.

Sarah thought about that.

"We drink blood because blood carries life. It is magic; somehow we go through a change that renders us able to absorb life from the blood we drink. We need to eat or our bodies grow weak. We need to sleep because our bodies grow tired. We drink water to quench our thirst and we mate to quench our lust. How different are we from humans?"

"Humans don't get excited about killing. Alright, a few do, but most of us are just average people who try to survive and care for their families _without_ hurting anyone. Our laws protect us. Vampires don't have laws."

Lyndon was completely unimpressed. He considerately put down his gun and folded his arms on the tale to give her his undivided attention, but the cool discipline of his features gave no hunt of any strong reaction.

"To be sure, it will take some time to break your delusions," he commented, "Do you know for certain that vampires have no laws?"

"I hardly think you follow the Ten Commandments," Sarah retorted.

"The Ten Commandments are a set of religious laws and I have seen them abused by the religious let alone the laity."

There were words that Sarah was aware she didn't understand. 'Laity' was one of them. Dismissing that momentary vulnerability as unworthy of this argument she seemed to be in, she opened her mouth to refute the point in question.

Lyndon beat her to it- "We shall not argue. That is for Jareth. I was never good with words."

Sarah's fencing instincts subsided. "You seemed to be doing well enough," she admitted wryly.

Those grey eyes were never friendly but Sarah found to her surprise that the vampire's stern façade hid a quiet laugh beneath. She smiled back unconsciously, looking away because she didn't know if she was allowed to share jokes with subordinates.

Lydnon was beginning to understand why Jareth was in the predicament he was in. The Goblin King had never been immune from error. Far from it! Lyndon had seen him fight and fail and be crushed times without number. In those early days when childer had had to endure the harsh rigours of vampire elders Jareth hadn't fared too well.

"A mistake," Lyndon said again, returning to the original topic, "Mistaken identity."

"Jareth? How come?"

"Oh, one of the elders desired a member of the nobility- someone whose connections could be used to keep us safe and hidden for a few years more. They caught the wrong person."

"I'm guessing Jareth was not nobility," Sarah asked.

"No, Jareth was not. Far from it. Moreover, he studied magic in life. The elders almost killed him when they found out."

"Why?"

"No elder is safe with an unruly childe who is potentially much more powerful. No elder would ever run the risk of being deposed."

"That must have been tough. Why didn't they kill him?"

"They tried. Jareth escaped and simply came back. It frightened them."

Sarah could see it, she really could. Jareth's arrogance _would_ send him swaggering back into the jaws of death. Probably equipped with nothing more than that infuriating smirk and a blithe quip.

"So how did you two meet up?"

"Stories for another time, Sarah. His Majesty will see you now."

Sarah looked over her shoulder and Jareth had just entered the Cathedral, trailing his cape over one arm. She nodded to Lyndon and got up from the table, making her way to where he had paused briefly to talk with his guards.

He held up a hand at her, signaling her to silence until he was done.

And then Jareth gestured back the way he had come. "A walk," he said shortly.

"Okay."

He didn't play tricks on her this time and Sarah wondered if he was in a temper. No snide comments, no tricks, no jokes- not even an offhand remark about a serious subject. Just that unnervingly serene quiet.

"Okay, what's wrong?" she asked, following him into the little room they'd taken to using for their 'walks'.

"Should something be wrong?"

"I don't trust all this peace and calm."

"Don't be so suspicious, Sarah."

She noticed to her relief that Jareth was smiling, relishing her worry. Maybe even her concern. And then her heart dropped again when the smile faded too soon.

"Now I know there's something wrong," Sarah told him, "Is it something I did?"

"Ironically enough- yes."

"Oh. What was it, something bad?"

He studied her, safe behind his enigma and somber as she had never seen him before. "We shall see," he evaded, turning away to pick a crystal from the table.

"I didn't do anything," Sarah offered, "So it couldn't have been that bad."

"It changed the course of history."

"That's bad."

Jareth nodded grimly and pointed to the apparatus that he found, to his annoyance, he had already labeled 'Sarah's chair'. It was not Sarah's chair. It was his. Everything in the Underground belonged to him. He had created the Castle, created every article of furniture inside it. He had to remember that nothing belonged to Sarah.

"Sit down, Sarah, we need to talk."

"If this is about sending me back…"

"This is not about sending you back," Jareth assured her, "Directly."

Sarah narrowed her eyes. She might have woken up disposed to making the best of her situation, but she wasn't going to be tricked again if she could help it.

"It is about your journey through the Labyrinth," Jareth began, arranging his cloak around himself, "About the havoc you created."

Instinctively Sarah looked out the window. The fires were out but the sky was still grey. The air was smoky; she could smell it now she looked for it.

"The Goblin City is repaired. We needn't concern ourselves with that. The state of my Labyrinth, however, is not to be dismissed. It took me twenty years to build- more years than you've been alive, might I add. And you destroyed it with six words."

"I wasn't trying to destroy anything. I just wanted Toby back."

"You got what you wanted. _I_ want an explanation about my Labyrinth."

"I didn't do anything!"

"Clearly, you did. Stone does not break lightly."

"Okay, it was an accident. I'm sorry!"

Jareth smiled at her and steepled his fingers. "I don't think you are."

She sighed and dropped her head into her hands.

"I don't think you understand any of this."

"No," Sarah said patiently, "I don't understand any of it. I didn't the first time you asked. I didn't even know the Labyrinth had collapsed, remember? I didn't know about the fires, about the Labyrinth or about you. I didn't even know you were a vampire."

The latter he waved away as quite off topic. "And now you do. What have you to say for yourself?"

"That I still don't understand," she snapped, "You said unfinished business, but what kind? Am I supposed to build the Labyrinth again? Do I apologize for winning? Because I won't, you know. I'm _glad_ I won."

"I'm sure you are," he murmured, conjuring a crystal, "But you would never take delight in another's misfortune."

She watched the crystal. Crystals never signified good things. Crystals, so far as she remembered, brought tricks and jokes. And Jareth. The trickster? Strange to think of a grown man- vampire- as Puck, but there it was. Jareth took far too much delight in seeing her squirm.

He laughed suddenly and released the bubble into the air. It split into three and Sarah could see something move inside them.

"Do you remember your party?" he asked, still with the laughter hidden in his voice, "A very grown-up dream for such a little girl."

"Dream?"

"Oh, yes. Your dream. People and places from your mind."

Sarah frowned at the crystal bobbing before her eyes, filled with the flat images she could barely recall any more. It all felt so long ago. Another lifetime, almost.

"I almost had you, then," Jareth's voice continued, almost as disembodied as the images in his crystals, "Another second, another brief touch. But you had other ideas, didn't you?"

"I needed to get Toby." Sarah waved the crystals aware and blinked rapidly, firmly positioning herself in the present. No point wandering away on sunbeams. "You really didn't think I'd fall for such a trick?"

"A trick, no. But a seduction, yes. I think you would have fallen." Jareth very easily popped the crystals and sat back in his chair.

Seduction. Sarah was certain she'd heard wrong. "You were trying to make me forget about the Labyrinth," she laughed, "It's not like you were offering to kiss me or anything."

Jareth sniffed delicately and felt the corner of his mouth turn up. It was just too easy! "In a way, I believe I was."

"What?"

"You know, I prefer you as you were in the Labyrinth. The one thing I have learned from my long, er, _lack_ of life, is that wide-skirted dresses are the very devil to contend with in a struggling victim. That white shirt, however, would have showed every drop I had missed, staining so well. A most debauched picture."

He'd told her before, Sarah remembered, that he took the good things from the children and took blood from the challengers in the Labyrinth. But he hadn't tried to bite her. Or rip her vein open, as Lyndon put it. She said so, somehow doubting that Jareth would do it to her as they were sitting there. She couldn't explain it. She just knew that he wasn't going to do it any time soon.

"And what do you think the seduction was? I was there with you, lying beside you, my hand upon your neck." He lifted his right hand and laid it carefully on his thigh. "I waited. The moment you gave in I would have opened your vein. No consideration."

"Why didn't you?"

"You didn't give in," he said, "You broke the dream. With a chair, too- I was most impressed. The game has rules. That's why it is a game."

Sarah was aware that she had been close to death, close to losing everything for her foolishness. But the logical side of her that couldn't just let things be wasn't satisfied. "You make the rules, you know. Who'd care if you break them?"

Jareth sat back with a smile, shrugging broad shoulders with an easy snap of bone and tendon. "I was once human," he chuckled, "I remember humanity. Human blood still flows through my veins whenever I can get it. It would be a poor victory to win by brute strength."

She shook her head in despair. "You _are_ mixed up. Very mixed up. You're a vampire with no conscience and a warped sense of fair play. You told me that nothing was fair."

"Watch how you quote, Sarah. I asked you what your comparison was."

"What's yours?"

"A fair contest, Sarah. I've killed and hunted, taking what I want with no worry for right or wrong- that was not fair. I've been hounded from one continent to the next for it- that was not fair either. There must be more to life, or unlife, than a constant struggle to eat and exist. I will not repeat that in the Underground. It is my home, even if parts of my duty are distasteful; I'm not going to be driven from the Underground."

Sarah felt weak. A little light-headed, even. But she was still thinking and she didn't want to stop the conversation. Especially now that Jareth was talking. Not tossing out words, but actually talking like a person with sense and emotion. "You can't. No one will find you here."

"Oh? It's not so hard to find. I found it."

"With magic! Lyndon says even vampires don't have the same skill as you do."

"I practiced before I was ever turned, Sarah. It was a coincidence, not a skill. Vampires are naturally more sensitive to magic. It keeps us away from complete death."

"Yeah, but you got better and you found the Underground. You tamed it. Lyndon says that no one he's ever seen could do that. How could anyone come and take that away?"

"Magic has its limits. And I know one person who could take that away."

"Who?"

"You."

Sarah blinked in shock. But Jareth was serious. He lounged back in the curved seat in a room messy with dust and cracked stone. And she could hear the dust and cracks in his voice too, in the way he watched her with those not-quite-right eyes.

"Me?"

"Remember your words, Sarah- 'you have no power over me'. If I don't, what does that make me?"

"I don't know," she confessed, "I can't think of it just now, but I'm sure it doesn't really mean anything except that you can't push me around."

"Really." He swung his feet back to the ground and stood up, towering over her. "If I am not your superior, what am I?"

She couldn't think of it. She knew what it was, of course, but the word slithered away so fast from her tongue that she couldn't say it.

"What am I?" he demanded.

"Stop shouting at me, I can't think." She put an adrenaline-icy hand up to physically cool her eyes. "I can't think if you shout."

"Then tell me what I am."

"This is not the way it's supposed to go," she told him, "It ended with Toby. It was only about Toby."

"With those words? Those are words that break lives, Sarah. Who does have power over you? Your mother? Whoring bitch ran away with another man; is that what breaks her power over you? Disgust? Anger? Rejection?"

"My mother is not a bitch. And how do you know all this, anyway?"

"My vampires move easily Aboveground. No problems with the sun. Or garlic. Or crucifixes. We give up our weaknesses and live for eternity, and we pay with our lives and our families. I can worship in a temple or a church with more piety than any of you can conjure up."

"You- you're shouting again."

"Humans have no concept of the universe. How can they worship a creator when they can't see creation?"

She was frightened by his vehemence. He could see that. So he stood back and took a deep breath. The cool air in his dead lungs calmed him, just as it always had.

"And you, a human with a human's understanding and human's ignorance, you are not my inferior. So what does that make you? More to the point, what does that make me?"

"I don't know," Sarah said thickly, "I don't understand any of this. It's not supposed to be like this at all."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, remembering headaches from long ago times when his eyesight had been compromised by dark rooms and faded writing in faded light. "Get rid of this habit of expecting the expected. Life is never like that and the Underground less so."

"I don't know," she said honestly, "I said those words because they were the words to say. I thought I understood them then but now I don't."

"Then let me explain. If I have no power over you, I am your equal." He nodded to the window. "Everything I saw was once mine but now I share it with you." The smirk this time was bitter. "That is, of course, if I am not your slave."

"I'm lost."

"Then I'll help you find yourself. I offered you my enslavement for one reason- it was a lie. If you had taken the crystal, you would have gone back Aboveground, forgetting everything that had happened. Everything would have gone back to normal except that you would have had the luck that people crave. You would have had your dreams come true. And you would have taken the bad with the good because people dream bad things as often as they dream good."

"I didn't take the dream."

"No. _You_ didn't even accept reality. Not you. That would mean you had to accept that you had done the unthinkable- you had wished your defenseless little brother to a tyrant and a monster, to become a creature of ugly ignorance. You wouldn't accept that. You wanted things your way."

She was learning, she realized, because this made sense. "I changed reality. I ran the labyrinth."

His mouth curved wider, sharp incisors clearly visible. "Clever girl," he approved, "You did. You changed reality. And you made it what you wanted- you won the game, you took back the baby, and you dealt the tyrant a cruel blow. You became a creator, Sarah. That is your unfinished business."

"Oh my God," she murmured. She looked down to her hands, expecting somehow to see them changed. "I didn't do all that."

"You did. Unfortunately. You ruined my vision of reality when you created your own. I can only ask you again- what am I to you? An equal? Or a slave?"


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Note: Been a long time, hasn't it? I just wanted to let you all know that this is the last chapter before the end. The next chapter should hopefully be the final one, unless my ideas change in the interim.

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"Where is she?" Lyndon asked.

The Goblin King didn't appear to have heard the question. He continued twisting the crystal on his fingers, concentrating on thoughts he didn't choose to share with others.

It was, after all, his right. There were some privileges for the Head of a Family. He was not answerable to anyone else. No one!

"Jareth?"

The others in the Cathedral had chosen not to disturb the Goblin King when he came stalking into the room. He wore the face that humans saw, but the flames licked in his eyes, warning that his temper was simmer just beneath the surface.

The girl was not with him.

Lyndon worried for that. Because the girl was dangerous with her new powers and she should not be left to run wild through the Underground. "Jareth, I demand to know where she is."

Blue-hazel eyes snapped up, murderous and blind. "Demand?" Jareth echoed, "You have a demand? For me?"

Lyndon resigned himself to the inevitable.

The Goblin King rose and advanced slowly.

Lyndon was taller by a few inches, broader by a few inches, and far more used to physical combat. But Jareth was the stronger, the more enraged, and ultimately the more powerful.

Lyndon could do one of three things- beg for mercy and retract his words, fight Jareth and depose him, or take his punishment in silence.

Jareth lifted his hand.

Lyndon didn't move, didn't flinch. He was prepared to take whatever consequences there were.

Jareth only grasped his shoulder and closed the gap between them. He tilted his head defiantly and challenged his old friend with his eyes. "A demand," he mocked, "Do go on. Take it. Anything. Take it all. And drink while you're at it."

Lyndon didn't move. He looked back as blankly as he could.

"No?" Jareth shoved himself away. "Am I too weak, too sullied?"

"It is not allowed," Lyndon replied.

"I am telling you to do it."

"Our rules are clear."

"Our rules are always clear," Jareth snorted, "Is that how I've let you grow? Creatures that cannot attack? Impotent and useless?"

No one in the Cathedral dared answer that ringing, echoing, shattering voice. One of the newer vampires opened her mouth to fulsomely deny every charge but Pel caught her by the back of her neck. She was just out of training; he wouldn't like to see her end without putting that training to good work.

"No answers amongst you. Eighteen of you. Eighteen grown, mature vampires. And not one of you has a word to say."

Lyndon was proud of his warriors. He had trained them himself, just as he had helped Jareth hone his skills. He had been there by Jareth's side when the young vampiric magician had made his own way in the world with a price on his neck and ambitious dreams.

"Not one of you desires to challenge me." Jareth's voice dropped to an ominous quiet.

Lyndon very slowly lowered his eyes.

Jareth had never demanded it. He had refused the bowing and scraping, annoyed with the mysterious intricacies of courtly behavior. Jareth had been born to plain speaking and had grown in carefully shaded words. Jareth could understand words. Behavior was another matter.

The Goblin King left the catacombs on foot.

Lyndon lifted his eyes and turned, brisk and business-like to counteract the awkwardness. The others knew what was happening. Jareth might evade and downplay the situation, but they knew. And while the family was so far unwilling to question Jareth, Lyndon's mind was practical and he would not be surprised to face defiance and doubt on those faces behind him.

The Underground was no longer safe for them. The girl was imposing her own emotions, her own fancies. The land was growing unfriendly to their kind and Jareth was powerless to change that.

So Lyndon put them to work scouring the Castle for the girl.

"Bring her back unharmed," he commanded, "And for your sakes, try not to frighten her."

She was untrained, and likely to do more harm than was necessary. Lyndon had lost too many of his vampires to this hostile land without losing more to the land's hostile enchantress.

The vampires left on their hunt, silent as cats in a graveyard.

Lyndon went after Jareth himself.

But not to speak to. Life forbid he tried to interfere! No, Lyndon wanted to keep an eye on him, to watch him and perhaps watch out for him.

Lyndon was a very practical being. He had chosen to follow Jareth, his cynicism finding a refreshing change in Jareth's ruthless aspirations. He had seen something in the young one of so long ago, something that had made him pause and look again- a hunger beyond bloodlust, a vanity beyond fine coats and mansions, a confidence that had nothing to with eternity but was of the person. The remainder of the person Jareth had been. The soul itself, in all its hungry, vain, confident glory.

After all, was not Jareth a manipulation of the name 'Jared'? And did not 'Jared' mean 'Ordained'?

Lyndon had never relied heavily on the meaning of names but in this case it was only one more sign, one more portent. A gleaming, glittering facet of a legend.

Jareth was a legend- quicksilver and brilliant.

Oh, yes, Jareth had been very calculated about all of it.

Lyndon couldn't trust this unexpected break in the legend. Not after so many careful deliberations and intelligent guesses. Jareth never worked blind. He had hidden for the years when he learned the contours of his magic, moving fretfully and fitfully from one night to the next, charming and cursing to live from hand to mouth. Lyndon was not a practical person but he had sworn himself to Jareth's side from genuine admiration.

It cut too deep, the admiration; it was for more than the vulnerabilities, the wounds behind the strengths. Lyndon knew this vampire as intimately as he knew himself and Jareth _was_ the legend. Lyndon respected him enough to reason that killing him would preserve the legend. Lyndon liked Jareth too much to see him dragged through the dust like a stallion too old and too tired.

That Jareth was tired was an understatement. He hadn't slept for two days, too caught up with his conquering mortal. He hadn't slept for long before her return, so worried was he for his Labyrinth.

Lyndon had watched for him then too and he had seen the figure vanish into the Labyrinth, watched hands tremble with pure control as Jareth fed power into the stones themselves, trying to bleach the girl's mind right out of them. But the Labyrinth was too big, and Jareth hadn't nearly enough.

The ruination of his dreams was painful to watch.

Jareth didn't take defeat well.

Lyndon found him outside the Goblin City, studying the goblins with a peculiar expression.

"They need fresh blood," Jareth suddenly spoke up, "Tell them to choose one goblin between three. I can't guarantee it, but the magic should have kept the things human enough."

He didn't specify who 'they' were, and Lyndon didn't ask.

Sometimes Lyndon forgot that his sire had been Jareth's, and that Jareth, for all his delicate fragility, was at least skilled if not equally comparable. Even if Jareth did not always choose to display it.

The Steward came forward to play his part in the decision, drawing closer but never to his side. "Where is she?" he asked again.

"In the Castle, perhaps. I left her there."

"This has to end," Lyndon advised, "Turn her if you cannot kill her."

"Too late. I told her what she faces. Turning her now won't be wise." Jareth's lips twisted at the irony. He had inspired fear when his power had been discovered, and in his turn her was afraid. Of a mortal girl of fifteen, no less.

Lyndon sighed. "She is not happy, is she?"

Jareth sent him a speaking look over his shoulder. And then a thought seemed to strike him and he turned fully, hands clasped behind his back as he stalked his oldest ally. "What is your opinion of all this?"

"You have done what you thought right."

"Well, what do you think of my right?"

Lyndon pressed down on his temper, annoyed at being circled like prey. He himself had taught Jareth his caution. For all those times in hiding when they neither of them could afford to draw human or supernatural attention. Jareth had twisted and twined caution and predatory instinct to something obscene, something needling. There was nothing in him to suggest restraint, merely pending judgment.

"I'm no longer infallible, no longer King. You don't think me weak? Pathetic? Fighting a losing battle, even?"

Jareth stopped to face his Steward and Lyndon tightened his jaw as he saw something quite unique.

"Tell me, old friend. What do you see?"

Jareth was asking in all honesty. A rare sight indeed. Lyndon had rarely seen that exhausted question in the unmatched eyes. He had certainly not noticed the stale dust of clothes worn too long, or the nervous twitches and dark circles.

"Lyndon?"

Jareth was on the brink of breaking open in the most spectacular way.

"I think you've deluded yourself," Lyndon announced crisply.

Jareth drew breath sharply into his lungs, seemingly stung by such cool disapproval. It was a ghost of a human habit, a gesture that still came naturally to all of them.

"You're in love with the girl," Lyndon elaborated, "You don't think or act except to see her, talk with her, bait her. I wonder if you ever wanted her to lose the challenge."

"You must be insane." Jareth laughed. His voice cracked. "This was hardly my goal. This… defeat."

"You might not have wanted to lose," Lyndon said implacably, "But you didn't want her to lose either."

"Ridiculous. One must lose."

"You never saw it that way," Lyndon observed.

Jareth looked up at him, staring intently as though to read something in the muscles of his cheeks, on his high forehead. Behind his back, the Goblin City continued oblivious to the chaos loose in the crumbling ruins surrounding it.

"As your friend," Lyndon reminded him.

Thin, pale lips quirked up at the corner and then Jareth nodded and turned back to the goblins. "Share with me," he invited, eyeing his prey.

Lyndon let him choose; let him single out one goblin from all the other grubby, squirming bodies.

The goblins never learned. The chosen one stopped in the street and put down his sack to pick up the bright crystal winking on the cobbles. He vanished from the City and no one else noticed. He squeaked when he blinked up at his King, part of his brain screaming at the danger that his weak mind was not able to process.

Jareth didn't give him the time to panic. He waved his hand and the puckered eyelids closed in spite of themselves. In less than two heartbeats, the goblin was unconscious.

Lyndon nodded and sat down with Jareth. He picked up a limp arm and bared the warm wrist. It was not an appetizing meal, but very little had been in the past few weeks. He tore open the flesh and greedily drank the fresh, sweet blood. The taste was wrong; he could tell from the thinner feel to the liquid, from the almost bitter aftertaste just behind his fangs. But it was fresh and he could feel the heartbeat in the pumping veins.

Jareth chose the neck. He drank slower, neater, as if he were savouring it.

They both fed in silence until the wounds began to thicken and the blood flow began to lessen. The heart was slowing down. They fed for an hour and when they were done the body was almost depleted.

Lyndon wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and sighed, eyeing the shriveled body with distaste.

Jareth drew his hand down the mottled face, lingering on the soft eyelids and haired chin.

"A man," he mused, "At heart a man with no notion of change, no understanding. No brain."

"It is either us or them," Lyndon stated.

"Oh, they were easy targets. Nothing to do with survival by this one. More fool them!" Jareth stood up and dusted his hands. "Better?" he asked with a grin.

"I feel more human," Lyndon quipped. He added a sardonic bow, smiling with his eyes where he rarely did with his mouth.

Jareth only laughed and threw an arm around his shoulders, drawing them together in that exhilarated giddiness that came with feeding. Resting his temple against Lyndon's dark hair and laughing quietly. Never pausing to breath. Laughing and laughing with sheer lift in spirits.

Lyndon held him up and indulged his whimsy. He always had. Something about Jareth gave him the idea that it would be worthwhile.

"We don't need her," Jareth was saying, "We can roam. There are other places. There must be other places. Far away. A real-life adventure. What do you say?"

"It will be hard going."

"We can make Pel call out marching orders," Jareth said mischievously.

Lyndon couldn't help grinning at that. The younger vampire had been the first Jareth had turned. As the Head of their little Family, only Jareth had that right. And he had chosen a weak, emaciated little teenaged pickpocket on the streets of Cornwall. Lyndon had questioned only once. Jareth had shushed him, dressed the youth in the finest silks and satins, and they had appeared at the English Court with more jewellery than half the noblewomen.

"You sent the others out after Sarah, didn't you?" Jareth whispered into his ear.

Lyndon nodded and shifted the arm around his shoulders.

"Mr. Brace," Jareth sighed, "You're too logical."

"The girl must be dealt with. Better in our sight than away from it."

"And you expect them to follow your orders?"

"I expect them to do what it is right for the Family. And you are the Head of that Family."

Jareth clapped him on the back and began the walk back to the catacombs, lean thighs flexing as though impatient to be off, to quicken the pace in a burst of adrenaline. "Let's see what she says. She's had the time to think. I have high hopes for this girl."

"Will you turn her?"

"If I'm in love with the girl, why would I want to destroy her?" Jareth mocked.

Lyndon kept his hand near his gun, the hair on his arms prickling as they walked closer to the creature's lair. It had been away for two days, now, but there was no knowing what it might choose to do.

"Perhaps because you love her," Lyndon said absently, "Love means possession, does it not?"

"Your ideas are terribly archaic. What the hell do you mean- possession? How can a chit like Sarah be possessed?"

"Very easily."

"With her power?"

"There will always be someone with power over her," Lyndon pointed out, "You said that yourself. Have you forgotten?"

"I meant her mother."

"And you."

"I, my friend, am a monster. Did she not tell you? I stole her baby brother and tried to seduce her in a magical Labyrinth." Jareth's smirk was brash and unapologetic.

"You did do all those things," Lyndon agreed.

"Oh, I did much more."

They arrived back at the Cathedral to find Sarah struggling in the tight grip of two vampires, screaming at them to let her go.

Lyndon melted away to the side but Jareth stayed in the shadows for the space of three seconds, mesmerized by the almost glowing savagery on Sarah's young face. Her hair was tangled and her clothes were dirty and there was a streak of mud on her cheek and fingers, but she was fighting the grip and fighting the vampires.

How she managed not to tap into her anger was an intriguing concept in itself.

"What is going on here?"

At the first word his vampires dropped away.

Sarah found herself on the ground in less time than she could groan. Then strong hands were helping her up and kindly leading her to a chair.

"Sit down, Sarah," Jareth instructed quietly.

He handed her into a chair with the utmost politeness, before calmly rolling up her sleeves to see whether she had suffered any bruises.

"Must I enforce my commands?" he asked.

There was no need to raise either his gaze or his voice. His vampires knew very well that he was a hair's span away from unleashing the punishment of their eternal lives. Jareth was very imaginative with punishments, and he used them as a parent would with a fractious child. Jareth was not without his annoyances.

"What's going on?" Sarah panted, yanking her arm away, "Why'd they drag me down here? What do you want with me?"

He raised an eyebrow at her and sat on the table before her. "Why, nothing." He looked almost surprised at the questions. "Should I want something?"

"No! But they said… they said…"

"Yes?" Jareth prompted.

Sarah shut down and looked away. "I want to go home," she said mutinously, "You said I could go home tonight."

Jareth tipped her chin up and smiled down into those suspicious green eyes. "So you shall," he promised, "Let me change my shirt."

"What?"

Sarah was clearly confused. She hadn't expected to be given her way. Or to hear Jareth sound so… domesticated? 'Change his shirt', indeed! Why'd he need to change… she saw the blood and didn't want to ask. She didn't think she'd like it.

"However," he said, "You do know that a decision must be made."

"I can't think of it now," she pleaded.

"As you like. The Underground is going nowhere. You only have forever."

He vanished for a while and Sarah didn't want to look at the vampires. She hugged herself and poked morbidly at the bruises on her arms to give herself something to focus on. Something besides the knowing smirk on Jareth's face, something besides the skin just below the hollow at the base of his throat.

When he returned, it was in a burgundy jacket that reached to his knees. She'd never seen that one before and it startled her to see such a vivid colour.

He sniffed unobtrusively and looked at Lyndon. The other vampire looked steadily back but those eyes were laughing. She was far more 'interested' than Jareth had previously thought. He straightened further, teasing her by moving in just such a way, in striking subtle poses and presenting subtle attractions.

"I can go home right now, right?" she asked.

"Right now," Jareth agreed.

She nodded and stood up. Looking quickly at the vampires around the room and then looking away again, catching Jareth's wild gaze and holding it. It was almost repulsive, she told herself, yet strangely fascinating. Like staring at a tiger before it pounces for the kill.

"You can have the Underground," she said bravely, "I don't want it."

She held her breath but Jareth's smile only softened.

"Child," he said gently, "I'm afraid it will never be that easy."

She let go and didn't know what to say, where to look. It wasn't embarrassment, it was confusion. She didn't want the Underground. She loved the thought of it, the idea of magic, but to rule it as Jareth had done was nothing she had ever dreamed of. She couldn't contemplate leaving her family, or Earth, for a world she could barely understand.

"Come, then," Jareth said, holding out a hand, "Let me take you back."

He wasn't wearing his gloves and his fingers were dry and cool against hers. Sarah tightened them when the world span away.

Jareth held on just as tightly, though for reasons best known to himself.


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Note: This is the second chapter before the end. The next chapter will be final.

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Jareth let go of her hand.

Sarah collapsed onto her bed and felt a little sick for no reason she could discern. She pressed a hand to her roiling stomach and took deep breaths.

Jareth neither moved away nor moved to help her. He only watched with no expression. Just those mismatched eyes fixed intently on her face.

"I don't remember it being this bad before," she said thickly.

"You weren't leaving a part of yourself behind," Jareth told her seriously.

"What part of myself?"

"Pieces of your magic, your mind, your personality. Parts of yourself."

Sarah made a face and got up, brushing past his tall frame to get to the door. She opened it slightly and peeked out, trying to listen for a noise to tell her who was home and who wasn't. The momentary thought of whether it was safe to have a vampire in her house crossed her mind, only to be dismissed again.

Jareth had not given her reason to think he was going to hurt her family.

She turned back and crossed her arms, leaning against the door with a curious desire to see him. In the middle of the evening, with the sun setting outside the window, it was very strange to see Jareth standing in a frilly, little-girl's bedroom. He didn't suit the ruffles and toys.

"Thank you," she said stiffly.

"For?"

"For bringing me home."

"I gave my word I would." He smiled whimsically and tipped his head to the side. He opened his mouth to say something and found himself uncharacteristically closing his mouth.

"What? Spit it out."

"A word of advice, then," he brought out, "Earth isn't the Underground." He left with those words.

Sarah thought it was just like the Goblin King to be so elusive. She snorted and couldn't help thinking it was a relief to be rid of him. He was… fascinating, but ultimately too exhausting.

"Dad," she reminded herself softly, already turning to open the door. Better to get it over with immediately. Knowing her father, he would have called the police in. He was a little oblivious but he tended to worry when he noticed anything changing.

"Dad?" she called, clattering down the stairs deliberately to make some noise, "Dad! Karen?"

Karen was home.

Sarah got the shock of her life when the woman threw her arms around her and exclaimed, "Sarah! Oh, we've been so worried! Are you alright?"

Sarah would have expected Karen to say something along the lines of, "We've been looking everywhere for you. Why didn't you come home?"

"I'm fine," she answered, astonished by the shake in her own voice, "I'm fine. I just woke up in bed. I don't know how… how long it's been."

"Ssh, then. Sit down. How do you feel?"

Karen almost pushed her into the chair, lifting a hand to touch her forehead, staring down at her with wide blue eyes.

Sarah looked around and it was the same cheerful sitting room she remembered. All carpet and couch and Karen's new curtains at the window and the hideous green and yellow rattle some insane old lady had given to Toby for his christening. The hideous green and yellow rattle was lying forgotten on the floor and Toby was asleep on the couch.

"Sarah? Sarah, honey, can you hear me?"

Sarah got the distinct impression that she had never needed to act as well as she needed to right then. Some cynical part of her mind was watching herself with amusement, as she blinked rapidly and stuttered, "I- I c-c-can he-h-h-hear you."

Karen sighed and stroked her hair, hugging her again. "There, there, dear. It's okay. You're home now," the woman crooned, "And all you need to do is relax. Just relax. We'll have a long talk about your habit of coming home after dark, young lady, but that's later. For now, just relax."

Sarah wanted to laugh. How had she never taken Karen dry humour at face-value before? Always convinced the woman was being serious and dismissive. She did giggle, and the objective part of her mind noted that it was quite expertly turned into a gasping whimper muffled against Karen's shoulder.

Robert came home and almost choked Sarah to death, grabbing his baby girl up in a hug. Sarah felt her toes leave the ground for one heart stopping moment.

"It's okay," she said, "I'm okay. He didn't hurt me."

"Who was it?" Robert demanded, "We have to call the police."

"I called Clive," Karen volunteered, "I told him Sarah needed to sleep. That she couldn't talk now. It took a while but I beat him down."

"Karen! She needs to tell them who this guy is. He could be getting away," Robert shouted, "Think about it! They need her description to catch him!"

"And Sarah needs some quiet." Karen's voice went hard and obstinate.

Sarah could have kissed her stepmother. She couldn't agree with her; her Dad was right. No kidnapper was going to hang around town when he'd just brought his victim back alive and lucid. But Karen was giving her the perfect opportunity to savour her return before the headache of creating evasive lies began.

Sarah found the lies to be very easy. "Dad? Dad, I couldn't see him," she pleaded, "He put me somewhere dark and wore a mask when he came in."

"Honey, you wouldn't even realize some of the things you picked up," he soothed, "The police can tell you if you didn't see anything."

"Dad…" her voice wavered and broke, tears in her eyes and her skin so cold, "Dad, I really don't want to remember. I don't. It was so horrible. I couldn't sleep and I didn't… please, I just want to sleep tonight."

What was any father to do when his daughter burst into a storm of weeping like that?

Sarah had worked herself up to sheer fright. She thought of the vampires and the demon that had attacked them on her first few hours there and she thought of her first trip to the Labyrinth and how close she had come to death without realizing it. How close Toby had come to a kind of death! She thought of the flames in Jareth's eyes and the way he had thrown open the curtains to taunt her, standing in sunlight like the devil himself.

All of it!

And she had slept in his bed. Eaten at his table. He had put his hands on her. The same hands that must have accounted for the blood on his shirt.

Sarah sobbed and sobbed in fright because she hadn't realized just how frightening it all was until she was away from it. Looking at it in the cold light of earthly reason.

She flexed her fingers in bed, late at night, poking at the bruises on her arms. She didn't feel any different. She couldn't feel anything in herself that hadn't been there before. Nothing was missing either. But she had power. More power than she knew what to do with, and though it confused her, it excited her as well. Some odd thrill ran down her back at the thought of it.

Sarah didn't realize until many days later that Jareth had been right- the Earth was not the Underground. And her power was in the Underground.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror, annoyed at how she was changing. She was growing thin and pale. 'Interesting', her grandmother called it disparagingly, as though interesting was synonymous with ugly. Her lips were thinning as her temper frayed and she was struggling to keep it under control. Her eyes were growing darker.

She leaned closer to the mirror, and through the metal and the reflection of herself and her room, she could see a vague smoky vision. A hazy glimpse of the ruins of the Labyrinth.

She blinked and the vision disappeared. It felt as though it had never been there in the first place.

Her mother came to see her, too, frantic at how close her daughter had come to vanishing forever. Linda had no custody rights; Robert could have forbidden the meeting. Sarah asked and he saw no reason to keep a mother from her daughter. Linda assured him it was only to see if Sarah was alright.

Sarah was almost sixteen. Almost grown-up. She hadn't seen her mother since she was eight. The newspapers and tabloids were all she had.

Linda didn't bring her lover or husband or significant other. Sarah didn't know if she was married, living in sin, or moved on from the one she'd had the last time Sarah had seen her pictures in the papers. Linda did bring presents, though. Flowers and photographs, books and a pair of earrings.

"I haven't pierced my ears," Sarah apologized, "But they're beautiful."

Linda put an arm around her shoulders awkwardly, afraid that Sarah would push her away.

Sarah didn't hate her mother. She didn't mind Linda putting an arm around her shoulders. It was gratifying that her mother still loved her enough to come down. Sarah thought of Jareth's scathing mockery of the poor woman and felt a twinge of guilt that perhaps he had hit upon a weak spot of hers. Sarah couldn't fault her mother for having a dream, and she couldn't fault her for living her life in any way that made her happy. But Sarah could wish that her mother didn't sleep around, and that her mother had tried to be a better mother than she was.

"I've missed you so much, fairy," Linda told her.

Fairy. Like she was six years old again and making believe.

Sarah grinned, taken with sudden irony of that. "More like goblin now," she laughed ruefully, though she expected Linda to take it as a joke instead of fact. "I'm glad you came."

"When Robert told me you were gone, I wanted to come down straight away but…" Linda bit her lip, "Do you hate me?"

"No, Mom. I don't hate you." Sarah rolled her eyes and kept the tone light. "I love you. You're a smart woman; you know that."

Linda laughed, enchanted with this mischievous, irreverent version of her little fairy. "I have to ask you, Sarah, did you run away? I won't tell, I promise. And I won't make trouble. But I see so many girls your age run away and I'm only happy you came back safe. But I need to know- did you?"

"Mom, I didn't run away."

Her mother, the actress, took her at face value.

Sarah gave the earrings to Karen to keep for her and pressed the flowers as a remembrance. Linda was talking about asking Robert if she could have Sarah for a few days in New York. She was offering to take her to a Broadway play. Sarah got the impression her Dad would say 'yes' eventually.

She looked at herself in the mirror again and her eyes were cynical. She smiled and she could see the secrets trapped in the stretch of her lips.

She went back to school and most of her class knew what had happened to her and people were always asking. Her school councillor was extra officious and wanting to talk to her and Sarah had to growl before the man backed off. Her friends got used to it and there were all those jokes about Stockholm Syndrome.

Sarah hadn't known anything about Stockholm Syndrome at the time. She'd read it up in a library. After which, she fluctuated between amusement, irony and disgust.

"Me and Jareth?" she told her reflection, "That would be weird."

But she thought about it and it dawned on her that she didn't need to be in love with the vampire, she just had to be sympathetic to his perspective. She was. Very sympathetic.

She had thought him arrogant and self-centred. He was that. But he was powerful. Sarah had a tithe of his power and she felt her ego expand insufferably. She found herself indulging the whims of others simply because she liked to think she knew better than them. She found herself believing that she knew _more _than them.

Sarah had hated the Goblin King for his games and his half-lies. Never full lies, just the half of one. Going through the Labyrinth was all very well but Sarah could never have brought Toby back if she hadn't conquered Jareth. Hadn't taken everything he'd created, including himself, and thrown it away with perfect indifference. That was a lie- that she could win if she was lucky. It wasn't luck. It was skill. Jareth had lied about that, but never actually lied.

Sarah felt it was easier to play the games now. How else could she divert suspicion? She had seen things, felt them. 'Going back is sometimes the way forward' and yet everyone wanted to forge ahead as though the past didn't matter. It did. The past was so important it was almost impossible to forget.

Sarah turned sixteen and her Dad let her have a drink even though she was still under age.

"Just be careful," he warned her sternly, "No more than one!"

She laughed and agreed just to keep him happy.

Toby got a little sister and the two-year-old had no clue what he was up against. He blinked at the new baby with blue eyes and asked Sarah what it was.

One day, just as she expected, Jareth returned.

"How have you enjoyed Earth?" he asked.

"It's home," she said, challenging him to mock her, "I wish I could do magic, though."

He smirked and conjured up a crystal. "The price to pay for conquering the land and not the ability," he said smugly, "But I have other business. I have news for you."

"News?" She realized he could still surprise her. And scare her. "Is it Hoggle? Has something happened?"

"The Castle," Jareth sighed, "Has been completed. Would you like to see it?"

"Why should I?" she countered, "It's not my castle."

He said nothing at first, just watching her with his mouth curling up at the corners. "So disheartening suspicious," he finally commented, "Sarah, it is very much your Castle. You created it."

"I did what?"

"Created it."

"I didn't. I haven't been to the Underground in ages."

He tipped his head to the side and put his hands on his hips, clearly amused by her denials. "I should say restored, shouldn't I? Very well. You have _restored_ the Castle in the Underground."

"Oh." She thought that over. "Why?"

"How should I know?"

"I mean, why did I restore _your_ Castle? Why not make my own?"

He laughed, then, sitting down fluidly on her bed and leaned backwards on his braced hands. "You're learning, Sarah," he complimented, "Ask why instead of what. How instead of who."

"And why not instead of no?" She could laugh at him too. And she did. Even if it was only to break the awkwardness she felt around him. He made her feel awkward. She couldn't tell what he was thinking. And he was still a vampire. In her house.

"I suppose so. The Castle?"

"I'm not interested," she replied coolly.

His jaw tightened temporarily but he rose to his feet instantly, looking her up and down. "As to your decision," he began.

"I don't own you," she interrupted.

The barest flicker of fire lurked in those extraordinary eyes. He looked almost annoyed and almost sad. "It doesn't work that way, Sarah. Keep trying."

Sarah couldn't understand it herself.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: This is the last chapter. Much thanks to all the reviewers and readers for their support. It's been appreciated and I only hope this story has been as enjoyable to read as it was to write.

Author's Note 2: This chapter is very long, but you'll soon see why.

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"That's the new Castle?" Sarah asked incredulously.

Hoggle tugged at her sleeve. "We shouldn't be here," he gulped, "We shouldn't."

"That's not the Castle," she said, ignoring him altogether, "It's… different."

"Sarah…"

"What?" She tore herself away from the vision of white marble and refocused on the dwarf hopping on one foot next to her. "Hoggle, are you okay? You look scared."

"I _am_ scared."

"Why?"

"The Undergrounders," he said, "They ate the goblins."

"What? How can they eat people?"

"The goblins are all gone," Hoggle insisted, jumping again, "We've gots to get out of here."

"I'm not going anywhere," Sarah declared, affronted by the very idea. "This is my land. I'm not running from anything! What'd those monsters go and do now?"

"Ssh! They'll hear you."

"Let them hear." Sarah was dangerously close to scoffing. She lifted her hands and carefully took the gloves from them. To her delight, the fingertips were sensitive and tender, almost swelling as the air sucked gently against each of them in turn. "I can handle them."

She forgot to watch Hoggle's face for the shock. It simply didn't occur to her. She hadn't stepped into her mirror with any idea of meeting people. She had gone there with the sole purpose of surveying the power that pulled at her dreams through long nights of restless twisting in the sheets. Now that she was there, all she wanted was this sense of power. Blissful, suffocating, intoxicating power. It warmed and chilled and thrilled with every passing second until she felt it throb to be let out again.

"I can take them," she said softer, smiling slowly to herself because finally she understood what she had been attempting to grasp since the day she had left to go back home.

She urged herself and a flower bloomed in her cupped hands. Chuckling she let it fall to the ground. It landed on the earth and the stalk took root, springing up to hoist the flower back to eyelevel.

Sarah reached out to touch it. The petals were rough and the edges hard. Something was wrong with her creation. It didn't bother her overmuch.

She stepped around it, trapped in a blue haze of question. The Castle looked higher and whiter. She could see the banners on the towers, the dark green shield with its red diamond. The doors were glinting bronze in the sun and the gleam was upsetting to her eyes, even from this distance. Sarah paused in mid-stride, taking it in thoughtfully.

It was hers. She could see her name in every block, every curve, every line. She took the step towards it and it felt like going home.

"Mine."

Sarah tried the word, testing it on her tongue. It didn't sound awkward.

"My Castle."

Something caught in her mind but she pushed it away impatiently. Now was not the time for intrusions. Sarah was caught up in the awe of the situation. Nothing like this would ever happen for her again, she was sure, and she meant to make the best of it. She had that task for herself.

The thorn didn't recede altogether. She kept catching herself up on it.

"Not quite my Castle." She looked at it again. "He said restored. Not created. He corrected himself, remember? Restored."

How could the Castle be restored? She could see nothing of the old Castle left in this bright new vision.

Hoggle watched her go, confused but too frightened to proceed further. He didn't understand it. The girl walking away was Sarah. He knew it. He had seen her face and heard her voice. But she was not acting as she should and he didn't know how to treat this new girl. This Sarah did not seem to want him.

He let her go, standing on his side of the gates.

Heart in his mouth he watched as she walked straight through them, as though she couldn't see them herself. And yet there they were, shimmering and glittering with threads of molten gold.

Strange, he thought it, for the old crumbling Castle to be surrounded by such a beautiful new gate.

He jumped when he felt a hand on his arm. He whipped around and almost fell back in fright.

Jareth pressed a hand to his mouth and didn't take his eyes from the slender figure walking away from him.

Hoggle watched the Goblin King watch Sarah. Time didn't seem to exist any more. He was almost overjoyed when the vampire finally stood, looking down at him with his strange eyes.

"Is she happy?" Jareth asked seriously.

Hoggle gulped and took a large step back. "Yeah," he tried.

"She has a good life on Earth?"

Sarah hadn't said. "Yeah," Hoggle continued, hoping it was what Jareth needed to hear.

"She came back to see the Castle, didn't she?" This time Jareth didn't wait for an answer. His eyes lifted and he glared distastefully at the gaudy spectacle. "Hideous. Truly hideous."

Hoggle could see nothing new though he turned his head and strained his eyes.

Jareth must have known because he laughed softly, shaking his head as if to enjoy his secret. "You can't see it, can you, Hoggle? She hasn't let you share in her vision. Only the gates, I suppose, to keep you out."

"I don't understand," Hoggle confessed. He could leave, he told himself, but there was nowhere for him to go. He'd taken to living near the gates of the Castle because there was no other sign of life. He couldn't risk living in the Goblin City, even though none of the vampires had as yet threatened him.

Jareth spun a crystal and held it out. "Look inside."

Hoggle didn't drop this gift from the white hands. "What is it?"

"A crystal, Heggle. Nothing more. It shows you what she has done."

Hoggle wouldn't believe it. That white Castle with the colours? It didn't belong in this land. Not in the Underground as it was. And where was the gate with the threads of gold? There was nothing around the Castle in the crystal. Not even the Goblin City. Where had that gone?

He looked up and wished he hadn't.

"Our little Sarah is learning," Jareth commented affectionately, "Her new home."

"Her home?"

Jareth looked down.

Hoggle imagined it was pity crossing the puckish features.

"You'll see," the Goblin King told him, softly as though to preserve some kind of quiet. And then he disappeared, fading slowly against the landscape.

Hoggle gave up.

Jareth, thankfully, didn't. He apparated into Sarah's throne room. He called it so in his head. He classified most things on an 'us versus them' basis. The only person to set herself up as neither was Sarah. And he duly noted it. So he apparated into Sarah's throne room and found her sitting on an elaborately formed throne.

"Glass?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow, "Or crystal?"

"Glass." Sarah smiled distantly and didn't stand up. "I felt you coming."

"You let me in," Jareth acknowledged, "Do you like what you see?"

Green eyes blinked at him and for just a second he saw Sarah's old uncertainty stain her cheeks. She gave a slight shake of her head, as though to dislodge a thought, and smiled slightly. "Do you like it?"

"I don't. But it isn't for me, is it?"

Sarah frowned slightly. "What's wrong with it?" she demanded.

"Pretentious," Jareth answered bluntly, "Too many frills and not enough planning."

"Well, I like it."

He smirked at her, settling his hands comfortably behind his back. "You should. You restored it."

That word again. "What do you mean- restored? Didn't I create it?" Sarah asked, anxious for some reason that she couldn't fathom.

"Perhaps. I don't know. It isn't in my power to tell you."

"Then why use the word restore."

He watched her for a moment, blinking lazily like a cat as he weighed his answer in his head. "I see a lot of my own Castle in your… monstrosity."

She laughed, rising finally and mimicking his stance, walking towards him with a grin on her face and her eyes glowing. "My monstrosity? You can't afford to talk! That old stone thing was terrible- cold, and draughty, and completely inappropriate. I bet half the rooms weren't even furnished."

"I saw no reason to provide furnishings."

"Well, my Castle is going to be furnished," she said firmly, "I'm going to have beds and dressing tables and closets. I'm going to have sitting rooms and reading rooms. I'm going to get a library and the kitchen's going to be enormous. There'll be a breakfast room and a formal dining room and a hall for receiving visitors. That's what _I'm_ going to have."

"Now, I," Jareth threw in smoothly, "Saw no reason for empty bedrooms. Most of my vampires cannot read and none of the goblins remember how. As for kitchens… we waited on ourselves." He smirked at her expression. "That surprises you."

"I thought you'd have servants. Goblins, at least."

"Sarah, you saw the goblins. Could you see any purpose for them?"

She thought about it. "No."

Jareth made his point with a small flourish of his fingertips.

"Is that why you killed them?"

He paused, thrown off guard for a moment. His face must have registered his enquiry because Sarah gestured to the arched doorway behind him.

"Hoggle mentioned it," she said.

"I see. Well, they weren't killed. They were eaten."

"Eaten?"

"Yes. Blood. We still need blood."

"You killed innocent people because you wanted to live." Sarah grimaced and turned away. "Someone should just kill you for the good of the world."

"Much as you hate to believe this, Sarah, I am not your enemy," he snapped, "There are far worse than I."

"Vampires shouldn't exist."

"Vampires do. Asking why is a waste of my time."

"Oh? And you've got something else to do?" she spat, tossing a defiant glare over her shoulder, "Well, go ahead. I'm not keeping you."

"I rather think you are," he retorted.

She snorted and waved a hand. "Don't flatter yourself. My magic has better uses." Her magic. It felt good to say it. Empowering. It made her smile and think of Karen. Poor Karen, still trying hard to find some way to connect with her teenaged step-daughter. Poor, foolish Karen.

Jareth sighed and shook his head. The look upon the girl's face was nauseating. She was gloating, her ego slipping its bounds and dancing wildly around her slender shoulders. What for? Jareth had honed his magic for years before attempting to do what she was doing. He could feel the mistakes she was making.

So he raised his hands and let her see him test her magic openly. The gloved hands shot sparks and Sarah gasped and stumbled over her own feet.

"Ow," she said plaintively.

"Yes, that does hurt," he said musingly.

"What did you do to me?"

"I tried to break your barriers around this place. Unfortunately, just as you let no one in, you let no one out. I'm forced to take a seat and wait."

"Oh." She looked at her hands and the fingertips were pink and tingling. "It hurt."

"Of course. I already knew I was trapped here. I simply thought I should try a little harder. Breaking one's hold on this place can be… shall we say unpleasant?"

"It hurt. That's not unpleasant, that's pain."

He only smirked and folded his arms.

Sarah followed along her train of thought. "Is that what it felt like, when…. You know."

"No."

"Jareth, you know what I mean."

His smirk widened. "Indulge me," he shot back.

A challenge. Sarah was stung at the accusation in his voice, the glib satisfaction of knowing she never liked felt comfortable talking about this. "Alright. Is this what it felt like when I broke your reality?"

Jareth was impassive as rock. He had to be. He wanted to hit her for the sly sadism in those green eyes. Darker, weren't they? Much darker. Like green glass. Like the throne she sat upon. Those eyes were no longer human. And her voice as she spoke of his defeat made no secret of her enjoyment in his downfall.

It made him angry, and cold, and loath to temper his already vengeful pride in deference to Sarah. He moved towards her, crowding into her space, his face lowered to hers so his low murmurs could be better heard- "You cannot even imagine the pain I went through with those six careless words."

Her pupils were dilating. Evidently vampires were still a source of fear.

And Jareth was no longer controlling his mask. There was little need to, and less power to. Feeding on goblins for over a year had done nothing more than slake his thirst. He had no more beauty to draw upon; his human essence was waning. His eyes rarely lost the flames that lived within them and his fangs were not so easy to disguise.

Sarah drew back.

He matched her pace for pace, his longer legs easily consuming the slight distances between them. "Was that all, Sarah?"

She took a deep breath. "You can't order me around any more," she decided, "If I have power over you."

He curled his upper lip in a snarling grin and his hands were on her shoulders, claws extended to press hungrily against young flesh. "Do you?" he whispered, "Answer me. Do you have power over me?"

"No." Whether she meant to answer him or ward him off, Sarah couldn't say. Her head was swimming and her shock-icy hands refused to touch the vampire, refused to rise up and push him away. She twisted her face away knowing it would only draw his attention to her neck.

"Do you mean it? I could rip your throat out before you nod your head." He lowered his mouth a breath from her neck. He could almost smell the blood. Her fear, certainly. Even a slight trace of 'intrigue'? Yes, certainly, all of those and more. But the blood was calling to him. Memories of warmth and ecstatic fulfillment, youth and beauty and power flinging itself into his face and easily finding a place in his veins.

Sarah took a deep breath and vanished.

Jareth didn't chase her. He straightened and smiled lazily when she reappeared on her green glass throne, shaking and pale, eyes bright with adrenaline.

She raised a hand but he summoned a crystal, balancing it on the tips of his fingers.

"Wait," he warned.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just kill you," Sarah grit out.

"Your will is as strong as mine," Jareth echoed, "Your kingdom as great. Your words, Sarah."

"Yeah, so?"

"Sarah, have you learned nothing?"

She raised her hand higher.

Jareth smashed the crystal and there was a fire blazing between them. "I still have my power," he said.

Sarah felt cold.

"_My_ power, Sarah. Equal to yours because you demanded it. My will is as strong and my kingdom as great."

"You're lying."

"I could bring this Castle down around us as we speak."

"You can't."

He raised an eyebrow and walked around the fire. Standing off to the side and half-closing his eyes. Taking the power that still resided in him and twisting it around to do his bidding.

The Castle began to shake to its very foundations.

To her credit, Sarah never made a sound. She clutched tight at the twisting arms of her throne. Her face was pale and her knuckles were white where they gripped the cool glass. "Alright, enough," she ordered.

Jareth stopped. "The advantage of the undead," he laughed, "I never get breathless."

"What do you want?"

"I want the Underground," he said implacably, "That alone is yours. My position in the Underground is only subject to you. Give me leave to stay."

Sarah was taken-aback. She hadn't thought of that. It had never occurred to her that Jareth and his Family would have to leave. "That's it?"

"No. Give me back my land."

"You can have it," she cried, finally giving way. She jumped down from her throne and as she walked away it disintegrated. "You can have the whole damned thing. I don't want it!"

Jareth caught her by the arms. "It doesn't work like that," he hissed, "Stupid, stupid. _Feel_ the land; taste it. How can you give back what you can't control?"

Sarah kicked him. Hard. Hard enough that she felt her toes ache. Hard enough that he let go of her instantly with an unseemly yelp. "Don't ever," she seethed, "Touch me again."

"All I ask," he said slowly, rising from a careful check on the bone of his shin, "Is what I am owed. You have no need for the Underground. I do. You don't want it. I do. Give it to me and we can go our separate ways."

"I wish I could give it back," she said, "But until I understand what's going on, that's all I can say."

"I can guide you."

"It won't work."

Jareth sighed and ran a hand through his blond hair. "Mortals," he mourned, "Always more trouble than they're worth."

"Vampires," she retorted, "Are just as bad."

Jareth chuckled; still angry but dismissing the emotion as fruitless. It did no good to be angry in such a situation. Much as it frustrated him, he could get nothing more from Sarah. Threatening her any further wouldn't work.

He wandered away to the window and breathed in the cool air, assessing the changes that he could feel on the breeze. The shift in the land that heralded a new touch, a new mind.

Sarah stared at him contemplatively from behind, sliding her eyes over the plum leather coat and grey breeches, over the muddy boots and the wispy falls of blond hair on his shoulders. She remembered tracing the lean, lithe, muscle-and-bone stretch and pull of his body. She remembered the smell on the pillows and furs she had been forced to share with him. She even remembered the feel of his fingers as he courteously returned her home.

He was a vampire.

He seemed human enough when he had fed on human blood.

He was still a vampire.

He turned and caught her eye, lips curling in that annoying little smirk of his. Sarah smiled back unwillingly. He was a vampire but perhaps there was a way she could get out of this.

"You know," she remarked, "We don't actually have to exchange anything."

"Really." He turned fully, favouring her with his full attention.

"Really," she mimicked, smiling her own seemingly innocent grin, "Since I don't want the Underground, you can have it. Since I can't give it to you, how about you take it?"

For the first time that she could remember, Jareth looked genuinely surprised.

"Oh, don't look so shocked," she laughed, "It's simple. We can make a deal. I just need to know I can trust you."

"Trust me." He repeated it as though he was having trouble understanding her simplicity. "What deal would this be?"

"Relax. It'll work out. First, though, I need your promise that you'll never come near me again when the Underground is yours." She was firm on this point. She didn't want the Underground. Even less did she want Jareth. She wanted her old life Aboveground, free and uncomplicated in comparison with _this_. She wanted to spend time with Toby and little Lillian. She wanted to go out with her friends and not wonder if the owl on the tree was spying on her.

Jareth never made any kind of promise without fully understanding the implications. It wasn't in his nature. But this… this was the Underground. And faced with the choice of this corrupted version of Sarah on the one hand, and his beloved land on the other, Jareth could only close his eyes and jump.

"I give you my word," he promised.

He had his Family to think about. They would starve. They were already relying on him to take them Aboveground for the latest feeds. They would never ask. They would starve if he neglected them. Those were the rules. They served him faithfully, and he kept them alive. The Underground was the only place of safety left for him. He needed control to set his Labyrinth back up. Anything Sarah proposed, he had to consider.

"Good," Sarah exulted, "You won't kill me or any member of my family. In fact, you'll never come near my town and my family again."

His jaw tightened. "What is this for?"

"Precautions. Promise me."

"Tell me the plan first."

She eyed him up and down but relented. "Since we have the same power, the only thing that really gives me the edge is the Underground. I own it; you don't. Right?"

"We know this, yes."

"Bear with me, please. Look, this whole thing started because I said you had no power over me."

Jareth's jaw seemed to tighten momentarily. "Yes." His voice was strained.

"Did that hurt?" Sarah asked in concern.

"The memory is not pleasant," he evaded, "Go on."

"So I was thinking," Sarah bit her lip and framed the sentence properly in her mind, "What if you did have power over me?"

Jareth was convinced she was mad. He said so.

She shook her head and held up a hand as though to keep him listening to her. "No, really. If you, as a vampire, can have power over me, as a person, then you have power. Right? So if you have power over me, you can break my reality and get back yours. See?"

"No."

"No?" Sarah clapped a hand to her head. "You've driven me round in circles for this damned thing and now I've come up with a simple plan you say no?"

"No," Jareth said simply, "It will hurt you. Chances are, you won't survive that."

Sarah visibly deflated. "Oh." She stared at the floor and absent-mindedly created two chairs. "Want to sit?"

"Thank you. I'll stand."

She shrugged and sat down in one of the chairs, tapping a finger against her knee to try to drum up an answer.

Jareth had a plan forming. He let it build slowly, watching Sarah's hands and Sarah's face. "The only other way," he said finally, "Is if I don't break your reality, but rather temper it with mine."

"How do you mean?"

He moved closer, his eyes narrowing as he carefully tested the air. "You are not… uninterested in me," he noted delicately.

"What?" She got up with a shake of her head and folded her arms.

He began to smile again. "Lyndon often remarked it when you were last here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sarah declared, her heart thudding louder in her chest. She had no interest in vampires. She despised them. She despised Jareth specifically.

"Little girls like you always play with fire. Sharp objects, too."

Sarah gaped from lack of anything productive to say or do. Jareth's voice had dropped to a laughing monologue. Yet, all the while he was advancing on her. Sarah began to back away slowly, holding his gaze in terrified fascination.

"No, not so uninterested. What do you say, Sarah? Mutual ownership? If danger is what you want, a vampire should suit you." He laughed softly and reached her, hand extended to touch her cheek.

Sarah jumped backwards. "If you touch me, I'll do something horrible," she threatened, "Don't even dare! I'm not interested. I hate you. You're a monster and you killed little children! I don't want anything to do with you!"

"Come now, Sarah. Monster?" He snatched her up and spun her around, his hands tight on her upper arms, pulling her closer. "Is that all you have?"

"Believe me, I'm just getting started." She wrenched herself away and brushed her hair off her face. "Get out of my Castle."

"No."

"Get out!"

He softened abruptly, tilting his head and folding his arms. The look on his face was almost… affectionate. "Sarah," was all he said.

Sarah wouldn't back down. But she didn't push him out the window like she wanted.

Hours later, Lyndon looked up as Jareth dropped into a seat at the table beside him. The other vampire was thin and gaunt, as were most of those in the caves.

"Was it the girl?" His hoarse voice rasped out of a dry mouth. "What happened?"

Jareth didn't answer. He only lifted the book upon the table and turned the delicate leafs with a slender forefinger.

"You drank from her," Lyndon observed.

The other vampires were drawing near and Jareth lifted his head to gaze intently at them before glancing across to his oldest friend. "You can smell the blood?"

"All of us can." Lyndon was a silent, stoic creature. He laughed with his eyes though his mouth never smiled. "All of them can smell it."

Jareth looked at his vampires again. "They're starving," he commented out loud.

"They are."

He nodded and then leaned back in his seat, snapping the book shut. "I did drink, yes."

Lyndon nodded. Without shifting his head, he barked an order. The others vanished, leaving instantly, obediently, as was their wont. He waited until they were out of earshot before licking his lips and blinking his dry eyes. "You _had_ refused to turn her."

"And I didn't," Jareth replied calmly, "She went back to the Aboveground."

"You took the Underground back?"

Jareth smiled to himself and thought of Sarah's face when he had punctured her skin with his teeth. He had sunk into her arm, eyes fixed intently on her face to make sure that nothing went wrong. "We came to an understanding."

He would say nothing more until a week later. Then, he only disappeared Aboveground, leaving his vampires in a large city in South America while he hunted down his own prey. They were lost in a feeding frenzy. Jareth returned for them in three days. Lyndon sniffed delicately and made no comment on the smell of Sarah's blood.

The Labyrinth, so long destroyed, was already rebuilding itself when they returned to the Underground.

"Human women will age," was all Lyndon had to say.

"All humans age," Jareth allowed.

"You should turn her," Lyndon advised.

Those strange eyes flicked to the side and then flicked away again, clearly amused by the thought. "My friend, if I turn her, she wouldn't be who she is. And who she is… I would never ask her to change."

"She will change."

"Then she will change in her own way," he decided.

The matter ended there.


End file.
